The Department of Homeland Security is giving $10,000 bonuses to transportation security officers who demonstrated “exemplary service” through the government shutdown.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the bonuses during a press conference in Houston, Texas, today. She highlighted the “tens of thousands of individuals who stepped up and continued to serve” at the Transportation Security Administration despite receiving no pay through the 43-day shutdown.

Asked whether she was referring to those who did not call out sick or stay home, Noem said, “that’s not necessarily the parameters.”

“We’re going to look at every individual that did exceptional service during this period of time when there were so many hardships,” Noem said.

DHS did not immediately respond to questions about who qualifies for the bonuses. TSA employs approximately 50,000 transportation security officers, meaning a bonus for every officer would cost roughly $500 million.

In a press release, DHS said it’s paying for the bonuses using carryover funds from fiscal 2025.

Disruptions to air travel began to grow in the final weeks of the shutdown. Security lines began to grow longer as some TSA officers called out. Meanwhile, flight delays and cancellations grew as air traffic controllers at the Federal Aviation Administration began calling out of work amid multiple missed paychecks.

Noem’s announcement comes after a Truth Social post by President Donald Trump earlier this week, in which he raged at air traffic controllers who took time off during the shutdown. Trump also announced $10,000 bonuses for controllers who “didn’t take any time off for the ‘Democrat Shutdown Hoax.’”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he agreed with Trump’s idea for a $10,000 bonus for air traffic controllers who had no missed days of work. But Duffy also offered a reprieve for some employees who missed days during the shutdown.

“We have some controllers who were put in a very difficult position,” Duffy told a Wisconsin TV station on Tuesday. “They’re young. They don’t make a lot of money when they first start out. They can make some good money later in their careers, but when they start out, they’re not making a lot. They may be the sole source of income, and they were confronted with a real problem.

However, Duffy also vowed to target “continual bad actors” during the shutdown.

“If they started to take time off because the shutdown was an excuse for them, we’ll take a look at those people, and we’ll work with the union and see what an appropriate response from the FAA will be,” he said.

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Following the longest shutdown in U.S. history, the federal workforce is now trying to get back to at least some sense of normalcy.

While federal employees who have been furloughed for the last 43 days return to work Thursday, the Office of Personnel Management is setting expectations for agencies as they begin to update pay, leave and benefits for those impacted by the lapse in appropriations.

In new guidance, OPM said it is “is committed to ensuring that retroactive pay is provided as soon as possible.” Compensation will be provided for both furloughed and excepted federal employees, as the spending agreement that was enacted Wednesday evening reaffirmed. A 2019 law previously called for retroactive compensation for all federal employees impacted by a shutdown.

A senior Trump administration official said the White House “has urged agencies to get employee paychecks out expeditiously and accurately to not leave anyone waiting longer than necessary.”

But the timing of employees receiving their back pay varies, depending on what payroll provider an agency uses, and the different pay schedules across the federal workforce.

Sending out retroactive payments to employees involves working across agency HR offices, federal payroll providers and shared service centers. Agency HR offices, for instance, have to submit timecards for federal employees, which are then processed by the government’s various payroll providers.

According to the senior administration official, employees from the General Services Administration and OPM will be among the first to receive their retroactive paychecks, with an expected deposit date set for Saturday.

Employees at the departments of Veterans Affairs, Energy, and Health and Human Services, as well as civilian employees from the Defense Department, will receive their deposits shortly after that — this Sunday.

On Monday, affected employees from the departments of Education, State, Interior and Transportation, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, National Science Foundation, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Social Security Administration and NASA, are all expected to receive their back pay.

Then on Wednesday, employees from the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Treasury, Labor and Justice, along with the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Small Business Administration, are projected to get their paychecks. The timing of the retroactive payments for feds was first reported by Semafor.

The National Finance Center, a payroll provider housed under the Agriculture Department, confirmed that employees at agencies using NFC’s services should expect a payroll deposit by the middle of next week.

“In order to provide backpay for employees as quickly as possible, the National Finance Center will be expediting pay processing for pay period 22 and backpay for pay periods 19 (October 1-4), 20 (October 5-18), and 21 (October 19-November 1),” USDA wrote in an all-staff email Wednesday evening, obtained by Federal News Network.

Federal News Network has reached out to several other federal payroll providers requesting details on the timeline for processing retroactive payments.

The National Treasury Employees Union urged immediate back pay for all federal employees who have been going without compensation for the last six weeks.

“This is an emergency for federal employees across the country, and they should not have to wait another minute longer for the paychecks they lost during the longest government shutdown in history,” NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald said. “We call on all federal agencies to process the back pay immediately.”

In its new guidance, OPM also noted that to make payments as quickly as possible, payroll providers may need to “make some adjustments.” That could mean, for instance, that the initial retroactive payments employees receive might not reflect the exact calculations of their pay and leave hours.

“Payroll providers will work with agencies to make any necessary adjustments as soon as practicable,” OPM said.

Who receives back pay, and how much?

Furloughed employees will receive their “standard rate of pay” for the hours they would have worked if the government shutdown hadn’t occurred, OPM said in its guidance Wednesday evening.

But there are some exceptions to that. If a furloughed employee, for example, had been scheduled for overtime hours that would have occurred during the shutdown, OPM said they should be paid their premium rate for those hours.

Additionally, OPM said that allowances, differentials and other types of payments, like administratively uncontrollable overtime pay or law enforcement availability pay, should be paid as if the furloughed employee continued to work.

Although most employees impacted by the shutdown are ensured back pay, there are some smaller exceptions carved out where employees may not receive retroactive pay, OPM added.

If a furloughed employee was in a non-pay status before the shutdown began, for instance, then they are not entitled to receive back pay.

Excepted employees who were considered “absent without leave” (AWOL) — or in other words, took unapproved time off — will also not receive back pay for that time.

Guidance on leave, post-shutdown

Although excepted employees are not required to use paid leave for taking time off during the shutdown — and can instead enter a “furlough” period — there may still have been some instances where excepted employees took leave during the funding lapse, OPM wrote in its guidance.

In those cases, excepted employees who were approved to take paid leave during the shutdown will be charged for the hours from their leave bank, OPM said.

Agencies are also expected to begin adjusting leave accrual for furloughed employees. Now that the shutdown is over, furloughed employees should be placed in a “pay status” for the time they would have otherwise spent working during the funding lapse. That means accrual of annual and sick leave will be retroactively adjusted as if the employees were in a pay status, OPM said.

Excepted employees continued to accrue leave during the shutdown, which should be reflected in their leave banks, OPM said.

What happens to RIFs of federal employees?

On top of reaffirming back pay, the spending bill that was enacted Wednesday evening also rescinds the roughly 4,000 reductions in force that have occurred since Oct. 1. Federal employees will be temporarily protected from additional RIFs, at least until the end of January.

Agencies have five days to inform federal employees who received RIF notices in October that those actions are rescinded.

“Agencies should issue those notices and confirm to OPM the rescissions have been issued,” OPM’s guidance states.

At least 670,000 federal employees have been furloughed, and 730,000 employees have been working without pay during the shutdown. Agencies have been putting plans in the works to return all furloughed federal employees to their duties as of Thursday.

OPM also said agencies “may consider” providing flexibility for employees who might not be able to return to work immediately, such as by approving personal leave or adjusting individual work schedules.

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The ongoing government shutdown, on track to become the longest funding lapse in U.S. history, is leading to staffing shortages at some agencies, given a rise in absences among federal employees expected to keep working without pay.

The Social Security Administration, in some cases, is keeping track of employee absences and limiting field office hours when staff are spread too thin. Much of SSA’s workforce is considered “excepted” and continues working without pay during a shutdown.

An SSA employee told Federal News Network that a field office in Port Angeles, Washington, closed last Wednesday at noon, due to a staffing shortage, and that last Thursday, a field office in Juneau, Alaska, didn’t open until 2 p.m. because of staffing issues.

These offices are currently open, according to a list of closures on SSA’s website. Other field offices in 12 states, however, were listed as not open for in-person services on Tuesday.

An SSA spokesperson told Federal News Network that two field offices were closed Monday, “due to limited staffing,” and that one of them reopened for normal operations on Tuesday. SSA has more than 1,250 field offices across the country.

“Dedicated Social Security Administration employees continue to serve our nation’s seniors and most vulnerable populations during the Democrat government shutdown,” the spokesperson said.

The employee, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said their office has begun filling out a spreadsheet every morning to record the number of absences. Absences, they said, peaked at more than 20% last Friday, although the office is seeing about a 15% absence rate, on average, for most workdays.

A notice on SSA’s website states that, “during the federal government shutdown, local offices will have REDUCED in-person services.”

Meanwhile, airports across the U.S. are experiencing flight delays and cancellations amid staffing shortages. Employees at the Transportation Security Administration and air traffic controllers at the Federal Aviation Administration are working without pay during the shutdown, and have seen an increase in absences during the prolonged shutdown.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters in Philadelphia that air traffic controllers have already missed one full paycheck and received a partial paycheck during the government shutdown, and are on track to miss a second full paycheck next week.

“Many of the controllers said, ‘A lot of us can navigate missing one paycheck — not everybody, but a lot of us can. None of us can manage missing two paychecks,’” Duffy said Tuesday.

Duffy warned that “you will see mass chaos,” if air traffic controllers miss a second full paycheck, which would happen next Tuesday.

“You will see mass flight delays. You’ll see mass cancellations, and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace because we just cannot manage it, because we don’t have the air traffic controllers,” he said.

Short-staffing of air traffic controllers helped bring an end to a 35-day government shutdown in January 2019. Up until now, it was the longest shutdown on record.

But the current funding lapse is on track to break that record, once it crosses the 36-day threshold on Wednesday. The Senate, for the 14th time, failed to pass a continuing resolution to fund the federal government in a vote Tuesday.

Duffy said the performance of air traffic controllers in this shutdown has been “far better than the past shutdown.” But the National Air Traffic Controllers Association told reporters last month that air traffic controllers are taking second jobs, driving for Uber or making deliveries for DoorDash, on top of working 10-hour controller shifts six days a week.

“Make no mistake, the longer this goes on every day, these hard-working Americans have bills they have to pay, and they’re being forced to make decisions and choices,” Duffy said. “Do they go to work as an air traffic controller, or do they have to find a different job to get resources, money, to put food on their table, to put gas in their car? And as every day goes by, I think the problem is going to only get worse, not better.”

The shutdown is having an acute impact on staffing, but Duffy said the FAA will still be dealing with workforce shortages after the shutdown ends.

“We want the best and the brightest air traffic controllers,” Duffy said. “But these young people have a choice to make. Do they want to go into a profession where they can have a shutdown and they cannot be paid? That has affected our pipeline. And so long after you all stop reporting on this shutdown, I’m going to deal with the consequences and the commitments I’ve made to improve our pipeline,” he said.

Duffy said air traffic controller staffing is up 20% compared to last year, but stressed that the shutdown “will have an impact” on recruiting efforts.

Federal employees working without pay and furloughed workers who do not work during the shutdown typically receive back pay once the funding lapse ends. But the Office of Management has floated the possibility that furloughed workers are not automatically entitled to back pay.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that the administration is prepared to hold talks with congressional Democrats over back pay for federal employees.

“This is something we are very much open to discussing with Democrats as part of the discussions about the continuing resolution to keep the government open, and it’s something that Republicans are talking with Democrats about right now,” Leavitt said.

President Donald Trump signed the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act in January 2019, which guarantees back pay to shutdown-impacted federal employees.

But a recent OMB memo suggests that lawmakers would have to include language in a stopgap spending bill or comprehensive spending deal for fiscal 2026, in order for furloughed federal employees to receive back pay.

Leavitt, however, said she didn’t “want to get in the middle of those sensitive conversations,” in response to follow-up questions.

“I won’t get ahead of those negotiations or discussions,” she said.

Last week, several agencies sent second furlough notices to employees that, unlike the first notice they received before the shutdown, made no mention of back pay once the shutdown ends.

Federal News Network received copies of notices sent to furloughed staff at the General Services Administration, the Interior Department and the Census Bureau.

A Sept. 30 furlough notice obtained by Federal News Network states that the “Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 provides that employees shall be paid for the period of the lapse in appropriations after a shutdown ends.”

The Oct. 31 notice, however, makes no mention of the 2019 legislation or back pay, but directs employees to “return to work on your next regular duty day,” once the shutdown ends.

Furloughed employees at the Office of the National Director of Intelligence, however, received more assurance in their latest notice that they would be paid.

Republican lawmakers have pressed Democrats to pass a stopgap spending bill that would fund the federal government through Nov. 21, But House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters on Tuesday that the Nov. 21 continuing resolution doesn’t give Congress enough time to reach a deal on a more comprehensive spending package for the rest of fiscal 2026.

Johnson urged the Senate to vote first on a new, longer-term continuing resolution and that he would call the House back in session once the CR passes the Senate. The timeline for a new continuing resolution is unclear, but Johnson said he would oppose a CR that keeps the government funded through mid-December.

“A lot of people around here have PTSD about Christmas omnibus spending bills. It gets too close, and we don’t want to have that risk. We’re not doing that,” he said. “I think putting it into January makes sense, but we’ve got to obviously build consensus around that.”

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