As the federal government shutdown rolls toward the one-month mark, TSA agent Neal Gosman is steaming as his plan to pay down debt and help his 31 grandchildren is on hold.

Gosman and nearly 600 other Transportation Security Administration workers at airports across Minnesota and the Dakotas are considered essential workers. That means they must clock in and do their jobs for no pay.

The shutdown adds to the anxiety many Minnesota federal workers have felt since President Donald Trump took office and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) started cutting jobs. As they try to figure out how to pay their bills, they also wonder if they will have a job to come back to when the shutdown ends.

“It makes us crabby in general not to get a paycheck. There is resentment building,” said Gosman, 78.

The Metropolitan Airports Commission set up a food shelf last week in Terminal 1 and asked the public for donations. TSA management is setting up a second food shelf.

Some of Gosman’s co-workers are picking up gig work as Uber and Lyft drivers. Other workers, some furloughed and some working without pay, are working as substitute teachers, trying to put off some bills and canceling vacations.

They worry about paying student loans and buying food, said Gosman, who makes $50,000 to $60,000 a year screening passengers and bags at security checkpoints.

Congress is at an impasse as Democrats refuse to vote to end the shutdown unless health care subsidies — which expire at the end of the year and were cut in the federal budget bill — are reinstated. Republicans say they will debate that issue, but only after the shutdown ends.

About 670,000 workers are on furlough and 730,000 employees deemed essential are working without pay across the country, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) on Monday issued a statement calling for Congress to pass a clean resolution opening back up the government.

“Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight,” Everett Kelley, AFGE’s national president, said in the statement.

Some TSA agents at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport are married to other agents; they’ve been going without paychecks because their odd schedules make gig work especially difficult. Other employees are leaning on family members to take extra shifts to cover bills.

If Congress “thought that we were important, they would be doing their jobs and passing bills to make sure the government was funded correctly,” Gosman said. “That’s why they were elected, to do their jobs prior to a shutdown period. It’s just not right.”

Furloughed U.S. Fish and Wildlife worker Brandon Jutz just canceled hotel reservations for a surprise Christmas trip to Disneyland that he and his wife planned for their 7-year-old twins.

They also are postponing Christmas shopping and skipping the twins’ weekly treat of Wendy’s chicken nuggets.

“As this shutdown drags on, obviously it impacts us more and more. It’s got me nervous for sure,” Jutz said. “You’re worried about getting paid, and then you’re also worried about, ‘Are you going to lose your job?’ So there’s sort of the double whammy. We’re trying not to panic.”

The Eagan resident — who for 21 years has built trails, roads, docks, bridges on federal lands across six states — is among nearly 200 regional and Minnesota Valley wildlife workers in Bloomington wrestling with the shutdown. Minnesota has nearly 18,000 federal workers; it’s not known how many are forgoing pay.

Federal agencies have provided letters that affected workers can take to creditors to ask for deferred payments or other relief.

Credit unions such as the IRS Federal Credit Union, Interior Federal, AgFed, Navy Federal and U.S. Employees Credit Union are offering members a range of assistance, including emergency loans, skipped payments and waived fees.

Jutz thinks he has enough savings to get by a couple more months but is considering looking for other work. Since Jan. 21, his department has lost 15% of its workforce as Trump and the U.S. Department of the Interior pushed workers to take buyouts and early retirements.

This month, the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE), another federal union, sued the federal government over attempts to fire furloughed workers.

“What began as a political standoff has become a full-blown crisis for working families across the nation,” NAGE’s national leadership said in a statement. “Federal employees are being forced to shoulder an unbearable burden.”

The threats about no back pay are just the latest worry for furloughed park ranger Kate Severson and her husband, Parker. They both have worked at Voyageurs National Park in International Falls since moving to Minnesota from Colorado in August 2024.

In February, Severson was fired in one of the DOGE rounds. She was considered a probationary worker. She was rehired after a judge deemed the firings illegal.

Now, with the shutdown, the couple are spending their savings. She predicts they have enough until January.

Early on, the nearly 20 staffers at Voyageurs bet on just how long the government shutdown would last. They all lost.

“I was overly optimistic,” Severson said. “I keep thinking, ‘Oh they will figure this out and it will be over by the end of the week.’”

As November looms, Severson said she’s ready to ask for deferred payments for their car loan and her husband’s student loan.

Even with some savings, the situation “is a little unnerving, especially because I know there are co-workers who [do] not have savings.”

While federal law says workers in shutdowns must receive back pay, with all the other budget cuts, they are worried, she said.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty,” Severson said. “A lot of co-workers are feeling strain because they are also threatening the reduction in force at the same time.”

For now, she’s trying hard to look at the bright side.

“Honestly, as long as we get back pay, the shutdown might help us a little, since my husband won’t have to take any sick leave for his recent [foot] surgery,” Severson said.

Weary veteran federal workers have been through furloughs before and are looking at options they figured out last time.

This is the fourth shutdown for Megan Wandag, who has worked for 21 years as a conservationist for U.S. Fish and Wildlife.

She’s scrambling to conserve cash and “control what I can,” including requesting deferred payments for her mortgage and cellphone bills.

Wandag also is considering asking her son’s school if she can defer fees for three upcoming AP tests.

Next week, she’ll start substitute teaching in the school district covering Apple Valley, Rosemount and Eagan, where her kids attend. She’ll receive $175 a day, about two-thirds of her missing federal paycheck.

Wandag said her union membership, seniority and current interpretation of federal law should protect her job.

Even so, “I’m worried for my colleagues and for the work that we do,” she said.

In a usual year, she hires and trains 15 interns and new workers. That pipeline has dried up in the past nine months, she said.

Her agency has lost about 2,000 workers nationwide in the permanent reductions, she said.

In the 1990s, when Fish and Wildlife staff was cut, she said the reductions seemed carefully planned and carried out.

At this point, she said, “it feels very much like this RIF is just (about) ‘You need to cut out X number of positions, so hack away with a big ax.’ ”

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