Updated on: October 27, 2025 / 12:00 PM EDT / CBS News
Some federal workers who are not being paid during the government shutdown have a nagging fear: They might not receive retroactive pay once the impasse is resolved.
Roughly 1.4 million federal employees whose wages are being withheld during the government shutdown are hunkering down and cutting all nonessential spending, as they missed their first full paychecks on Friday.
Here's what to know about retroactive pay for those workers when the shutdown ends.
Both furloughed workers and so-called "excepted" government employees, who must continue to show up to work during the shutdown without compensation, are entitled to back pay under a federal law called the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019.
The law makes clear that both classes of federal employees affected by a lack of funding will eventually be paid in full. They "shall be paid for the period of the lapse in appropriations, and each excepted employee who is required to perform work during a covered lapse in appropriations shall be paid for such work, at the employee's standard rate of pay."
However, a draft memo from the White House's Office of Management and Budget suggests that furloughed workers are not guaranteed back pay, an administration official confirmed to CBS News. When asked on Oct. 7 about furloughed workers getting back pay, President Trump said, "I would say it depends on who we're talking about."
Legal experts insist that federal employees are unequivocally protected under the 2019 law. In an Oct. 7 statement, Max Stier, CEO of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, said the act "is very clear in its mandate to give automatic back pay to furloughed workers during a lapse in appropriations."
Dan Meyer, a partner at Tully Rinckey in Washington, D.C., said the law appropriates, not authorizes, back pay for workers.
"If this came to a judge, I think the appropriations language would speak heavily that they were required to pay the federal employees based on that legislation," he told CBS News.