CASTRO VALLEY, Calif. (KRONA) – The government shutdown has entered its third week with no solution in sight, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal employees without paychecks.
While active-duty military personnel receive their paychecks, many other federal employees are struggling to make ends meet, with some considering loans or turning to food banks.
At a news conference on Wednesday, East Bay Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-Livermore) criticized Republicans for their unwillingness to negotiate.
He added: “But they do not want to reach an agreement.” “Speaker Johnson has chosen to protect Donald Trump from exposure for how close he was to Jeffrey Epstein on opening up government and lowering health care costs.”
“As I said, a lot of our employees live paycheck to paycheck,” said John McMeel, vice president and chief of Federal Employees Chapter 20. “Some people may have to leave federal service — get other jobs just to pay their bills and feed their families.”
The shutdown began after Democrats rejected President Trump’s proposed bill, which they referred to as the “Big Beautiful Bill,” to reform short-term health care financing.
Democrats insisted on including health care support in the funding bill, but President Trump and Republican leaders have refused to negotiate the issue until the government reopens.
A federal judge in San Francisco temporarily blocked the administration from firing federal employees during the shutdown, providing some relief to workers worried about job security.
President Trump has directed the Pentagon to use all available funds to ensure active duty pay is paid, but this directive does not extend to other federal employees.
According to Swalwell, some Americans could see health care costs rise by as much as 300% by November 1, if the lockdown does not end.
All facts contained in this report were collected by journalists working forCrohn4. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat the broadcast transcript into a news article for our website. This report was edited and verified by KRON4 staff before deployment.