U.S. federal employees who were furloughed in early October due to the partial shutdown will be paid about $2 billion as compensation. In a new report, the Office of Management and Budget detailed how the partial government shutdown harmed the economy and temporarily shuttered an array of government services.
The report highlights that the idle time of the government agencies shaved 0.2-0.6% off the GDP growth for the fourth quarter. In particular, the local authorities short-received proceeds at $500 million in visitor spending at U.S. national parks. The Internal Revenue System also faced a delay of nearly $4 billion in tax refunds. Besides, it postponed the start of the tax-filing season by two weeks.
On the whole, the government agencies were off the job from October 1 till 16 since the Republicans and Democrats were unable to resolve the disagreements over budget allocations for the coming year, and the federal agencies ran out of money. At the peak of the shutdown, about 850,000 federal employees were furloughed. The new draft budget was endorsed by President Barack Obama on October 16, and the next day public sector workers resumed their service. At that point of time, rating agency Standard&Poor’s estimated that the U.S. economy fell short of $24 billion in total.
