WATCH LIVE: The Senate reconvenes as the Trump administration threatens more firings due to the federal shutdown

WASHINGTON (AP) — With each passing day of the government shutdown, hundreds of thousands of federal employees who have been furloughed or are working without pay face increasing financial pressures. Now they face new uncertainty with the Trump administration promising layoffs.

The Senate is scheduled to reconvene at 10 a.m. ET. Watch in the player above.

Little progress has been made to end the shutdown as it enters its third week, as Republicans and Democrats dig deeper and become convinced their messages resonate with voters. The fate of federal employees is among several pressure points that could eventually push the parties to agree to resolve the impasse.

Read more: Judge temporarily blocks Trump’s firing of federal employees during shutdown

“Fortunately, I was able to pay my rent this month,” said Peter Farrugia, a federal employee who was furloughed. “But I’m definitely going to have bills that won’t get paid this month, and I don’t really have much of a choice.”

The shutdown sounds familiar to many federal employees who have endured past gridlock — including during President Donald Trump’s first term — but this time, the stakes are higher. The Republican White House is exploiting the jobs of federal workers to pressure Democrats to ease their demands. A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked management from firing workers during the shutdown, saying the human cost “cannot be tolerated.”

The shutdown began on October 1 after Democrats rejected short-term funding reform and demanded that the bill include an extension of federal support for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Trump and other Republican leaders have said the government must reopen before they negotiate with Democrats on health subsidies.

The Trump administration launches a wave of layoffs

Farrugia is chairman of the executive committee of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2883, which represents employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency that faced a wave of layoffs over the weekend. Like 8,000 other CDC employees furloughed by the agency, he was already living paycheck to paycheck, and the partial pay that arrived Friday was his last until the government returns to work.

Read more: Federal workforce shutdown cuts will “most likely” exceed 10,000, Foote says

With the agency’s leadership in turmoil and still tense over the shootings, the closure and new chapter means “people are scared, stressed, anxious, but also really angry,” Farrugia said.

After Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said last week on social media that “the RIFs are on,” referring to power cuts plans aimed at shrinking the size of the federal government, Vice President J.D. Vance doubled down on the threat on Sunday, saying: “The longer this goes on, the deeper the cuts will get.”

Layoffs have begun across federal agencies. Labor unions have already filed a lawsuit to stop the move by Trump’s budget office.

In a lawsuit on Friday, the Office of Management and Budget said more than 4,000 federal employees from eight departments and agencies would be laid off in conjunction with the shutdown.

He watches: How the latest round of federal layoffs could affect public health

“I personally have a backup plan” in case she gets fired during the shutdown, “but I know most people don’t,” said Jessica Sweet, a Social Security claims specialist in Albany, New York, who is a union steward for AFGE Local 3343 in New York.

She says the Social Security Administration is already severely understaffed due to layoffs earlier this year due to the State Efficiency Administration, and she is not afraid of mass layoffs during the shutdown.

“The one thing this administration has taught me is that nothing is ever certain, even if it is written into law,” she said.

After receiving a partial payment from her last paycheck, Sweet began reaching out to her local energy companies to ask them not to charge late fees, because “my bills won’t wait for me to finally get paid.”

The lockdown continues, and frustration grows

For some federal employees, this isn’t their first shutdown — the last one, during Trump’s first term in 2019, spanned a record 34 days. But this time, federal employees are being used more directly as leverage in the political fight over government funding.

He watches: Jeffries says “the only way forward” is for the GOP to negotiate with Democrats and address health care costs

The Republican administration warned last week that there would be no guarantee of back pay for federal employees during the shutdown — a reversal of a long-standing policy that affected nearly 750,000 employees, according to a White House memo. This move, which Trump later retracted, was considered a strong tactic.

Adam Pelletier, a field examiner for the National Labor Relations Board, whose agency furloughed nearly its entire workforce on Oct. 1, from about 1,100 workers to fewer than a dozen people, said he wouldn’t mind if the shutdown continued if it meant meaningful progress toward getting health care protections to Americans across the country — a key demand by Democrats to end the stalemate.

“Right now, nothing is being investigated at the NLRB,” said Pelletier, a union leader for NLRB local 3. “There are no union elections or decertification elections. Basically, nothing is happening.”

Read more: At the heart of the shutdown battle, health care is one of the most difficult issues in Congress

As for the financial pressures on workers, he said workers can’t even find alternative work to get through the shutdown because “the ethics office that would approve those requests doesn’t have staff right now.”

Using workers as “political pawns”

Several union members have been laid off as of Friday, said National Treasury Employees Union President Doreen Greenwald, who represents workers at dozens of federal agencies. According to the file, the Treasury will lose 1,446 employees.

Greenwald said it was unfortunate that the Trump administration was using “federal employees as political pawns by furloughing them and proposing to fire them all to try to apply pressure in the political game of chicken.”

He watches: “Do your damned job,” federal labor union leaders tell a Congress mired in a shutdown

“It’s not about one party or another. It’s about real people,” said Everett Kelly, president of the American Federation of Government Employees.

“A corrections officer who’s worried about his next paycheck. A TSA officer who still shows up for work because he loves his country, even though he’s not getting paid. No American should have to choose between serving their country and feeding their family,” Kelly said.

Kelly and other top federal labor union leaders gathered at the Capitol last week, urging congressional leaders to find a solution and put “people above politics.” The event became emotional at times, as union leaders explained the difficulties facing their members and the growing risks daily.

Read more: Amid the shutdown battle, Trump is no longer distancing himself from the 2025 project

Randy Irwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, which represents 110,000 workers across the country, called on both sides of Congress to find a solution. He said Trump appeared to be aiming to “weaken, intimidate and antagonize hardworking federal employees.”

Chris Bartley, political program coordinator for the International Association of Fire Fighters, said thousands of firefighters come to work without pay out of a sense of loyalty, but he stressed that this could have wider consequences.

“Families are living without income,” Bartley said. “Morale and job retention suffer. Public safety is at risk.”

Bedaine reported from Denver, and Riddle reported from Montgomery, Ala.