Fact check: Which government agencies are most affected by the shutdown?

1. Striking Numbers: Which Agencies See the Biggest Workforce Hits?

Public reporting and agency disclosures point to very high furlough rates at regulatory and education agencies, with the Environmental Protection Agency reported at about 89% of staff furloughed and the Department of Education at about 87% affected, alongside significant impacts at Commerce, Labor, and HUD ^[1]. These percentages reflect non-excepted workforces where operations are judged non-essential under shutdown rules. The coverage frames these figures as immediate operational disruptions to inspections, grant processing, and enforcement activities. These tallies come from contemporaneous reporting and interactive trackers that aggregated agency notices and internal counts, offering an unusually granular snapshot of which civilian functions are halted compared with sectors that remain fully operational under “excepted” designations ^[5].

2. Public Safety and Operations: Which Services Keep Running and Which Stumble?

Critical safety and law-enforcement missions continue but under duress: border protection, select law enforcement, and in-hospital medical care remain excepted, required to operate without current pay, while non-essential services such as national parks, museums, federally funded pre-schools, and routine regulatory work are reduced or closed ^{[6] [4]}. Transportation operations present a mixed picture: air traffic control must operate, but reporting warned of missed paychecks and potential staffing shortages that could cause delays and strain the system if pay interruptions persist ^[2]. This split forces agencies to prioritize mission-critical work and suspend routine oversight, affecting long-term safety nets and regulatory backlogs even as core security functions are preserved.

3. Pay, Layoffs and Administrative Moves: How the Federal Workforce Is Being Managed

The administration has announced layoffs and personnel reductions amid the shutdown, with multiple agencies issuing personnel notices and planning for force reductions; the White House framed these as necessary staffing adjustments while some departments continue to operate with a mix of furloughed and excepted staff ^[3]. OPM guidance remains the baseline for distinguishing “excepted” employees who must work without pay from those furloughed, and that framework determines who is subject to administrative vs. shutdown furloughs ^[7]. The immediate result is a workforce split between those required to perform essential national functions and those idled, producing uneven economic and service impacts across states and localities where federal employees and contractors operate ^[8].

4. Tangible Public Consequences: Food Aid, Health Coverage, and Consumer Protections at Risk

The shutdown has concrete programmatic consequences: USDA food-aid distributions risk interruptions, and reporting warned of food aid not going out on scheduled dates, while health-care program administration and insurance assistance face disruptions that could leave millions vulnerable if pauses continue ^{[2] [4]}. At the same time, regulatory enforcement — inspections, environmental monitoring, and consumer-protection actions — slows where agencies like the EPA and Commerce have large furloughs, raising the prospect of both short-term gaps and long-term backlogs in enforcement and permitting. These program-level effects are measurable and vary by agency, with immediate harm concentrated where staff are largely furloughed and program drift where enforcement systems pause ^{[1] [6]}.

5. Competing Narratives: Political Framing and What’s Missing from the Headlines

Coverage shows competing narratives: the administration emphasizes necessary workforce reductions and claims of fiscal management, while Democratic leaders highlight the human and programmatic harms, including lost pay and threatened benefits, and label moves like mass-firing threats as political escalation ^{[3] [5]}. News trackers and interactive charts provide data but leave out longer-term costs such as the economic ripple effects of unpaid workers, project delays, and enforcement backlogs that are not yet fully quantified. Watchdogs and watchdog reporting call attention to selective disclosures — agencies vary in transparency about furlough counts and excepted determinations — creating information asymmetries that can be exploited by political actors to shape public perception ^{[5] [9]}.