Bay Area Houston

Some might think it’s all fun and games. It’s not.

NASA employees are in their second week of being furloughed. What happens when NASA employees are furloughed? Not much, literally. Basically employees are forbidden by law to work during a furlough. That means they cannot go to the office. They can’t work from home. They can’t conduct or participate in telecoms.

Do they get paid for not going to work? Depends. If the furlough continues past the pay period employees will not receive their paychecks because, well the government is closed, including the office that issues checks. The question this time is whether they will receive back pay for the time they were furloughed. In the past, or at least the last 4 furloughs, back pay was authorized.

This time might be different. The million of federal employees furloughed might have to suck it up and take a very costly hit all while members of Congress will get full payment. The argument will be easy. “If you didn’t work, you shouldn’t get paid.”, or “If I didn’t work I wouldn’t get paid.”. Even though federal employees were forbidden by law to work they might not get paid leaving them with unpaid mortgages, etc.

Some employees at NASA will be designated as essential such as those who manage the Space Station at Mission Control. Contractors are not affected by the furlough. While the furlough continues some employees may find out they are fired.

But that won’t happen until they get back because, well the government is closed, including HR.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 13th, 2025 at 7:00 am and is filed under Political. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.