A government shutdown is looming. How would it affect people in Kansas and Missouri?

Like a boat approaching an iceberg, Congress is moving steadily toward a government shutdown this week, as hard-line House Republicans have ground efforts to pass a temporary funding measure to a halt.

A shutdown would mean on the first of October the National Parks and Forests close. It suddenly becomes more difficult to get a hold of government agencies like the Internal Revenue Service weeks before the October deadline for people who got an extension on their taxes. Benefits for children in low-income households would drop dramatically. Farmers have a harder time getting marketing loans from the USDA.

And hundreds of thousands of federal employees across the country will stop getting paid.

That includes the 36,181 civilian federal employees in Missouri and 17,320 federal civilian employees in Kansas, most of whom would not be paid during the shutdown even if they’re deemed essential and remain working.

“The initial impacts are going to be to the federal employees not receiving a paycheck,” said Doreen Greenwald, the president of the NTEU, which represents federal employees across 31 departments and agencies. “And that creates a lot of stress and uncertainty for employees.”

When would the government shut down?

If the House and Senate don’t come up with a deal by Saturday, the government shuts down starting Sunday, Oct. 1.

This has happened before. The most recent, and longest, shutdown stretched 35 days between 2018 and 2019, and the government also shut down in 2013.

Every agency has a plan for how to handle a government shutdown. The agencies determine which employees are deemed essential and send everyone else home. The “essential” employees then have to start working without pay.

Why would the government shut down?

Congress hasn’t passed a plan to pay for most federal agencies for the new fiscal year, which starts in October.

When Congress returned to Washington this Tuesday, both the House and Senate started working on legislation that deals with government funding, but they’re working in opposite directions.

The Senate started pushing a bill to buy more time to negotiate a larger spending deal. Their legislation would keep the government open until Nov. 17 and would give around $6 billion to Ukraine and $6 billion for disaster relief.

The House, instead, started working on trying to pass smaller spending bills, with deep cuts and provisions — like lowering Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s salary to $1 — that are extremely unlikely to pass the Senate.

And neither side agrees with what the other is doing.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, said he won’t put a bill that temporarily funds the government on the floor if it doesn’t have money for border security, which isn’t included in the Senate bill. And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, New York Democrat, criticized the House’s efforts saying they have “nothing to do with avoiding a shutdown.”

Tens of thousands of KC area paychecks on the line

Kansas City is a major regional hub for federal employees. The Treasury Department and the USDA have offices with hundreds of employees and the new Kansas City International Airport terminal is the workplace for TSA agents and air traffic control officers.

There are several military bases in both states, including Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and Fort Leonard Wood and Whiteman Air force Base in Missouri.

Most military personnel are considered essential employees, so they will still have to work. But unless Congress passes legislation to ensure they’re paid during the shutdown – as they have in the past – they would be working without pay.

While Congress passed a law in 2019 to ensure that federal workers are given back pay for the paychecks they miss during a shutdown, Greenwald said shutdowns bring additional financial insecurity to millions of families who don’t know when their next paycheck will come.

So while essential federal workers — like TSA officers working in airports, military members, air traffic control officers and border patrol agents — will still work through the shutdown, they won’t be able to get paid until after Congress reaches a spending deal.

She said even with back pay, it sometimes takes weeks or months to get the missed paychecks, making it harder for any federal workers to pay back any short term loans they need to take out to make it through the shutdown.

What does a shutdown mean for SNAP, WIC and other benefits?

A lot of federal programs people rely on, like getting the mail from the U.S. Postal Service, health care from Veterans Affairs hospitals and Social Security payments, will keep operating during a shutdown.

And Medicare and Social Security will largely not be affected. They’re considered “mandatory” spending. Families getting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, which used to be referred to as “food stamps,” will stay in place for a while.

But people getting help from WIC, a nutrition assistance program that provides financial support for mothers, children and infants in low income households, will feel the effects of a shutdown right away, said USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack.

The payments that Kansas families get will be cut dramatically almost right away — dropping from as much as $25 a month for children and $49 a month for mothers to $10 a month for children and $15 a month for mothers, said Erin Melton, an economic security policy advisor at Kansas Action for Children. After a few weeks, the program as a whole will be in jeopardy.

In Missouri, the food program has enough money to keep running until February, but the administrative funding — which pays the staffers who help people get onto the program and provide assistance — would potentially run out by mid-November.

The White House estimates that 47,399 Kansans qualify for WIC and 90,913 Missourians.

The state governments in both Kansas and Missouri have been planning and preparing in case of a shutdown, creating plans to help ensure that programs can run for as long as possible during.

“The hope is that these proactive measures will help limit disruptions to programs and services tied to federal funding, at least in the short term, should a federal shutdown occur,” said Johnathan Shiflett, the press secretary for Missouri Gov. Mike Parson.

What about farmers?

USDA home loans and marketing loans for farmers may be harder to get, according to Vilsack. That’s because the USDA offices in nearly every county would need to close, even though it’s harvest season.

The White House has attempted to increase pressure on House Republicans who are reticent to pass a spending bill.

“The speaker needs to do a job,” Vilsack said. “He fought for it. He negotiated for it. He needs to do the job and get the job done.”

Star reporters Kacen Bayless and Katie Bernard contributed reporting.