Before the longest government shutdown in U.S. history last fall, Susan, who will reach her 10th anniversary as a TSA employee next month, had finally paid off all of her debts – a feat for the single mother of a teenage son. But after that shutdown, and then the one after that, and now this one, two of Susan’s credit cards are maxed out. She has $1.15 in her bank account, three-quarters of a tank of gas, and enough food to make it until Friday.
“And I’m one of the more fortunate ones,” says Susan, whose name has been changed for fear of retribution at work. “We just dig in and hope that we get paid before we get evicted and our cars get repossessed. We are always the pawns.”
Almost all of the roughly 60,000 Transportation Security Administration employees at more than 430 commercial U.S. airports are considered essential workers, which means they are expected to continue working without pay during government shutdowns. As a result, TSA workers are caught in the middle of a monthlong DHS funding stalemate over immigration enforcement policy. They already had one paycheck cut to a fraction of what it should have been, and just missed their first full check.
Why We Wrote This
During the third funding shutdown since last fall, Transportation Security Administration employees are again working without pay and bearing the personal cost of a political standoff. Some workers are taking sick days and others are quitting, causing airport delays.
For many TSA workers, drawn to the job for its stability and not the pay, three government shutdowns within the past six months have made it impossible to do what was already a difficult job. The number of “callouts” – employees calling out sick for work – has doubled, says Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Some TSA workers are driving Ubers or waiting tables to make ends meet. More than 300 have quit during this shutdown alone. At Susan’s Ohio airport, she says 15 of the roughly 200 employees are expected to leave by the end of the month.
With federal funding once again being used as leverage in a policy fight, TSA workers are relying on $10 gas gift cards from passengers to try to make ends meet at home. Although the TSA workers are often hit hardest by shutdowns, it’s the airport disruptions – with snaking security lines vexing travelers – that often pressure Washington to end a funding standoff.
Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor
“Anything that affects the federal government in general affects TSA, and people will see it,” says Mike Gayzagian, an 18-year veteran TSA employee at Boston’s Logan International Airport and president of the New England branch of the TSA union since 2018. “We’re kind of like the canary in the coal mine. If something is happening in the federal government, it’s going to come to TSA, and it’s going to be visible to the public.”
Gift cards and food drives
For many federal airport employees, the stress of the past few months can be summed up by the gift card drop boxes and food drives at terminals across the country.
On Facebook, the airport in Orlando, Florida, requests nonperishable foods, laundry detergent, and diapers to be dropped off at Terminal C. Near Denver International Airport’s baggage claim, a black box with a long, thin slit labeled “TSA Gift Card Drive” directs the public to deposit grocery or gas gift cards, up to a $20 value each. “Thank You for your support during this partial government shutdown!” the box reads. As of midday Tuesday, the Denver airport had collected more than 950 gift cards in one week.
Five of those cards came from Sandy, who works in sales and declined to give her last name, after traveling from Alaska to Colorado this week.
“I feel so bad that our elected leaders cannot figure out how to take care of the people,” says Sandy, after depositing her $10 Walmart gift cards into the box. “The way things are going, we don’t know how long they’re going to be out of work.”
In January, the House passed a $64 billion funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security. But Senate Democrats say they won’t vote for the bill without changes to the department’s immigration enforcement tactics. Among their demands: prohibiting federal agents from wearing face coverings and instituting a use-of-force policy after the fatal shootings of two American citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year. Along with the TSA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Coast Guard, and Customs and Border Protection are all under DHS’ funding umbrella.
After five weeks of the partial shutdown, the White House sent a letter to Republican senators Tuesday, agreeing to limit immigration enforcement activities at “sensitive locations” such as hospitals and schools and to expand the use of body cameras among DHS officers. In response, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the White House was “not getting serious” about negotiating.
In addition to seeking funding for DHS, several airline CEOs have urged Congress to pass various bills introduced in the past year, such as the Aviation Funding Solvency Act, the Aviation Funding Stability Act of 2025, and the Keep America Flying Act of 2026, which would fund TSA workers and air traffic controllers regardless of the government’s funding status.
“Once again air travel is the political football amid another government shutdown,” the CEOs wrote in a letter to Congress last weekend. “This problem is solvable, and there are solutions on the table.”
Questions about job stability
During the 43-day government shutdown last fall, around 1,110 Transportation Security officers quit – a 25% increase in TSO separations compared with the same period the year before. Many cited “uncertainty, stress, missed paychecks, and financial hardships of the government shutdown,” said Ha Nguyen McNeill, deputy administrator of TSA, during a February hearing before a House Appropriations subcommittee.
“Three shutdowns since November have essentially created a situation where people who thought they had a stable federal job can no longer think that,” says Mr. Gayzagian, who works at the Boston airport. “In the future, it’s gonna be tough to be able to convince people that federal service, or service with [the TSA] in particular, is what they want to do. Now it’s a hard sell.”
Susan has thought about leaving the job, in which she feels like she’s “getting bullied every day” by disgruntled passengers. But over the past decade, she has worked her way up from a $30,000 starting salary to $80,000, and starting a new job somewhere else would probably mean a 50% pay cut. She’s also stayed for the great benefits and job security, which, she says, “is ironic in this situation.”
When this shutdown started, Susan says she called her mortgage company, Ford, and AT&T, and told them all the same thing: “I’ve had four paychecks since the last shutdown; I didn’t have time to prepare for this one.”
Congress is now approaching a two-week recess at the end of the month – during which time the lawmakers will be paid, Susan notes. TSA staffers, on the other hand, “are stuck.”
