Closing would affect more than 800,000 federal employees, including some White House staffers

Contingency plans are in the works as the government prepares funding to expire on April 8.

 

Expect about 800,000 federal employees to stop working, said a senior administration official in a conference call for reporters April 6. That figure is based on what happened during the last government shutdown in the mid-1990s, the official said.

 

That rough estimate doesn’t account for changes since the previous shutdown though, such as the Veterans Affairs Department’s multi-year appropriations and the creation of the Homeland Security Department. Reference Article.