Federal defense worker Rob Merritt fears he may have to file for bankruptcy if he gets furloughed from a government shutdown.
Merritt was already borrowing off his credit cards to support his family of six when he was furloughed for six days during the sequester, earlier this year.
"If we were to go into a moderate government shutdown, I'd probably have to file for bankruptcy," said Merritt, 43, who works in information technology at Aberdeen Proving Ground, near Baltimore.
Merritt is among over 800,000 workers who expect to be ordered to stay home on furlough when a government shutdown kicks in on Tuesday. Another hundreds of thousands of workers could be told to work, and not get a paycheck during a shutdown.
It is just the latest smack-down from Washington for federal workers still smarting from unpaid summer furloughs.
What's more, their pay has been frozen at 2010 levels without annual cost-of-living increases, and salary increases only for those who have been promoted. And just this month, workers learned of a 3.7% hike in premiums for their 2014 health insurance.
Related: Shutdown -- a multi-billion dollar hit to economy
Once a shutdown kicks in, furloughed federal workers will not be paid. But there is a chance Congress may decide to compensate them once the furlough ends, as was the case in previous shutdowns in the 1990s. (Any federal worker who is required to work during a shutdown will be paid for that work, but his paycheck may be delayed.)
"Federal workers have nothing to do with bringing about the government shutdown, but they are the ones who are going to feel the impact of it the greatest," said National Federation of Federal Employees union President William Dougan.
The impending federal shutdown was expected to affect an even larger group than those who weathered furloughs from the $85 billion in forced spending cuts earlier this year.
Paychecks for military members had been in jeopardy. But last minute scrambling in Congress produced a bill that guarantees pay for active duty military in a government shutdown. President Obama signed the bill into law late Tuesday.
Support groups for military families said they're being inundated with questions.
Related: How will a government shutdown affect you?
"Most of our military families live paycheck to paycheck," said Corrie Blackshear, spokeswoman for Army Wife Network, a support group. "They've got to pay for car loans and baby formula and all the rest of it."
Blackshear, who lives in Colorado Springs, will also be affected. Her husband serves in the Army at Fort Hood, Texas, and is three weeks away from retirement. He may not be able to retire and join his wife in Colorado if the shutdown continues. No one will be available to process his papers.
"We're expecting him to be home in three weeks, but he may not be able to," Blackshear said.
Related: FHA-backed mortgages to be halted in shutdown
For Merritt, the crunch time is already here. His job comes with an annual salary of $80,000, but he has lately struggled to pay a mountain of medical bills due to an emergency heart surgery in April after a heart attack last year.
His wife has been taking care of him. But she was also in the middle of career switch and has had trouble finding new work.
The Merritts could probably manage if a furlough lasted only a few days. But if it lasted weeks, it would push them over the edge, he said.
"The problem is, these shutdown threats keep happening," said Merritt, who has worked at Aberdeen since 1989. "Even if we go back to work on Tuesday, assuming Congress does something, we'll be assured of being employed for two weeks, until the next fight over the debt ceiling."
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