How the government shutdown is affecting Americans

Courtney Thoms writes that she and her husband both work with a federal contractor for NASA, and they are both going without pay. She says before the shutdown began, they started proceedings for her husband to adopt her daughter.

"Now that we aren’t getting paid, we can’t afford the Guardian Ad Litem the court is requesting to finalize her adoption on the 15th of this month," Thoms says.

Thoms says they are worried about how they will afford their mortgage because they traveled over the holidays to see family.

"We weren’t expecting this, or we would have saved our money," she says.  

Cynthia Letts writes:

Ravyn Senter writes:

Staffing for the agency overseeing the federal food stamps program has been cut by 95% because of the ongoing government shutdown.

Morgan Saul writes:

Jennifer P. says she and her husband are both federal workers. She just paid off her student loans, but that's left her with very little savings.

Because of the shutdown, Jennifer says she and her husband have been trying to cut costs any way they can. She says they've been staying mostly at home, mining cupboards and forgoing outings with friend to cover the bills.

"We live in a very expensive valley, so it’s not the best location to be unemployed in, and it’s hard to get temporary work here since we don’t know how long we will be furloughed for."

Trevor Bousu is an Air Traffic Control supervisor who works at Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center. He says he has "been proud of the work my controllers have done day in and day out without knowing when we will be paid next."

Bousu says there is an "older Hispanic woman who diligently does her job of emptying garbages, vacuuming the facility and making our workplace clean."

He's concerned that the woman is unaware that she may not receive pay when the shutdown is over.

"Now I pray that is not the case, but she is just an example of hardworking people getting hurt the most."

Rosalind Brooks says she is a single mother of two children who are still in daycare.

She writes:

"With the government still shutdown, no income in sight, and savings running low, I may be forced to withdraw my children from daycare."

"If I have to, they will possibly lose their spot and I won’t have any care for them in the event we are forced to return to work without pay."

Michelle V says her husband is a furloughed employee of the US Forest Service. Being without his paycheck is causing childcare worries for her family too.

"Theoretically my husband could watch our girls, but then we would lose our spot and be in a heap of trouble when the shutdown ends," she says.

Sarah Doerr says her 6-year-old son has a rare, neurodegenerative disease called PKAN. She says the clinical trial for a potentially life-saving treatment is in the final stages of FDA review and approval, and that she was hoping the trial would start in early 2019.

"Now that much of the FDA is shuttered, we don’t know when the approval process will be back on track. A month or two delay could be a matter of life or death to kids with this disease," she says.

Tony says he runs a drug company with a drug licensed from the National Institutes of Health.

"We can't move forward with one of our life-saving cancer treatments because we can't sign an updated license agreement since the government is shut down," he says.

Kimberlee Roberts, a stay-at-home mother of three children, says her husband works for Customs and Border Protection. She says he has to show up for work without getting paid, and "has been forced on overtime shifts because of short staffing."

"We are just normal people who make enough to live. Missing paychecks, however, would be catastrophic to our family. We don't appreciate being used as pawns in a political game. It may not affect Congress to keep the government closed, but it definitely affects the regular family just trying to pay our bills," Roberts writes.