KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The federal government shut down overnight, closing many agencies and leaving hundreds of thousands of workers facing furloughs or unpaid shifts.
While benefits such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and VA payments will continue, military members, TSA agents, and thousands of IRS employees are now required to work without pay. Kansas City is home to more than 6,000 IRS workers, and union leaders say many have been watching Washington anxiously as their livelihoods hang in the balance.
“Employees are frustrated. First of all, let’s just get that out there. It makes us angry that we are used as pawns in the political games,” said Shannon Ellis, president of NTEU Chapter 66.
The Biden administration approved emergency funding that will allow the IRS to pay employees for five days during the shutdown. After that, Ellis warns, workers will again be left without a paycheck.
It’s a scene familiar from the last major shutdown, when IRS employees went more than a month without pay.
“You know, you’ve got childcare … Employees are going to have to continue to come to work. They have to keep shelling out gas for their car, food for their house, medication for their family, and day care for children that require it, and none of those services are going to be put off to wait for our pay,” Ellis said.
Shut‑and‑start operations can also cost the federal government, Ellis noted, from paying back wages and restarting emergency staffing plans to recruiting and training replacements for experienced employees who leave.
“It doesn’t help anybody. It costs the government more money. It harms the American people, and it chases away a lot of potentially good employees, because they get tired of being that pawn,” Ellis said.
During the previous 35‑day shutdown, Ellis said some IRS staff couldn’t pay mortgages or afford needed medications while continuing to work every day. With the majority of Americans - including federal workers - living paycheck‑to‑paycheck, she says disruptions like this hit especially hard.
For now, local IRS workers are relying on the short‑term funding to stay afloat, but Ellis says their concern about the weeks ahead is real.
KSHB 41 reporter Grant Stephens covers stories involving downtown Kansas City, Missouri, up to North Kansas City. Share your story idea with Grant.
