'It does affect real people:' UNC students' families feel effects of federal shutdown

On the 27th day of the longest federal government shutdown in history, not much has changed at UNC.

But junior Valerie Lundeen faces a different reality – because her dad is one of the 800,000 federal employees not being paid.

While Valerie said she is not yet worried about things like paying tuition, she said the length of the shutdown, and not knowing when it will end, has been mentally taxing for her and her family.

“I think it just takes a mental toll, just the uncertainty of the state of the nation," she said. "I think we’re all operating under the assumption the government has to reopen relatively soon."

A shutdown is when the federal government experiences a gap in funding due to the inability of the U.S. Congress and the president to pass and sign budget legislation.

When a shutdown happens, federal departments that have not yet received funding for the fiscal year – such as the national parks, museums and the Internal Revenue Service — must discontinue all non-essential discretionary functions. This results in one of two things: workers either being required to work without compensation or being furloughed, which means they are not allowed to work.

Valerie’s dad, Bill Lundeen, a tax law specialist within the transfer pricing operation of the IRS, is one of the furloughed workers. He has experienced several shutdowns in the time he’s worked for the IRS – within the national IRS branch from 1990 to 1995, and with the Chicago branch since 2011. However, this shutdown has been particularly stressful.

“My wife works as a minister in a church on an hourly basis, and she coincidentally was having hip surgery just about the time that the IRS shut down. So she has no income coming in, and I have no income,” he said. “So it’s stopped our cash flow completely –  we have zero cash flow coming in, we just have to live off our savings – we’re fine, we’ll be fine, but it’s going to affect a lot of federal families that don’t have savings.”

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed a bill which ensures federal employees affected by the shutdown will receive back pay for wages lost. However, it remains to be seen how long it will take for the shutdown to end so this compensation can take place.

On average, federal workers each have missed $5,000 in pay from the shutdown so far and many expressed having less than one month of savings, according to a New York Times analysis. Most federal employees are paid every two weeks. Lundeen, and many other workers, would miss their second paychecks on Jan. 26 if the government doesn't reopen by then. 

For Valerie, an economics and public policy double major with a minor in journalism, being directly affected by such a historical government event has been interesting but also taxing. She emphasized finding a balance between being worried about her own family’s situation, while also acknowledging that the consequences could be much worse for others, such as those who could lose access to food stamps if the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) doesn’t receive funding.

“I don’t want to over-dramatize the situation because there are definitely families of federal employees who are struggling to pay the rent or put food on the table and I’m really grateful that’s not my family’s situation,” she said. “But everything’s just so unprecedented right now, you never know when things could change.”

As of midnight on Saturday, the 22-day gap in American government funding became the longest in history. Prior to the current shutdown, the longest record was in 1995 under former President Bill Clinton, lasting 21 days.

While government shutdowns have occurred more frequently in recent years, the first did not happen until 1976, and since then, there have been 21 shutdowns of varying levels, including the current shutdown, with only eight of them lasting 10 or more days.

Bill Lundeen said he is hopeful this new Congress will work with Trump to move past this proposal to other matters. For the work he does in the Transfer Pricing department, he said this many days away from cases with large disputes could change the outcomes of really important cases.

He also expressed some concerns for the future federal workforce – mentioning people just entering the workforce may decide against what could’ve been “a nice, steady career with very interesting work” because of the shutdowns of government taking place.

“It’s really quite alarming when you think about the federal government shutting down when there’s absolutely no emergency causing it all – it’s a failure of the two branches getting together and having a signed budget,” he said.

While a recent Washington Post-ABC news poll found a majority of Americans blame Trump for the shutdown, Trump has taken to Twitter nearly every day of the shutdown to blame the Democrats.

“Democrats could solve the Shutdown in 15 minutes! Call your Dem Senator or Congresswoman/man. Tell them to get it done! Humanitarian Crisis,” he tweeted on Jan. 12.

Like many others, Valerie said she was frustrated with Trump’s response to the shutdown, and thinks many people are, regardless of their political opinions about the administration. She said a president holding out for this long for one policy, at the expense of 800,000 families, “is not the way to get it done.”

“I think with anything that’s affecting people positively or negatively in society, it’s always good to have a story you can relate to of, “Oh, this is affecting real people,’” Valerie said. “I don’t have a very intense story, and I hope that I won’t — but, it’s just a good reminder that the things Congress does and the things that happen in Oval Office aren’t just things that will be in the history books, it does affect real people in real time.”

@HannerMcClellan

university@dailytarheel.com