PSC Shutdown Impact Tracker
Updated Nov. 4, 2025
The government shutdown continues to cause serious, unnecessary risks within federal agencies and the essential missions they support on behalf of the American public. View some of the shutdown's impacts below.
Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration: Contractors manage the U.S. government’s nuclear complex, including cleanup of the Cold War legacy and modernization of the nuclear deterrent. These sites are projected to exhaust carryover funding within 2-4 weeks, forcing contractors to self-finance operations that cost as much as $10 million per week for a single site. As staffing reductions take effect, activities essential to nuclear safety and deterrent modernization may be halted, placing security and environmental safety at risk.
Department of Health and Human Services: Contractors have received stop-work orders affecting multiple contracts supporting the Head Start Program. Roughly 365 contractor staff across all 50 states are now on unpaid leave or furlough. These professionals provide training and technical assistance to teachers and staff serving more than 716,000 children and their families through over 1,600 grantees.
NASA's Artemis II Program: Contractors at multiple NASA centers continue “excepted” work to support the Artemis II launch preparation, including the successful stacking of the Orion spacecraft atop the Space Launch System at Kennedy Space Center. Yet without funding, contractors are working without pay; this threatens employees, subcontractors, and small business partners who cannot sustain operations without reimbursement and jeopardizes America’s leadership in space exploration and innovation.
The Space Force and Missile Defense Agency: Contractors are providing mission-essential services for space defense and missile protection systems. While operations continue under “excepted” status, the absence of payments destabilizes small businesses and subcontractors that underpin these programs. Once these companies are forced to furlough staff or halt operations, rebuilding lost expertise will take years.
Defense Threat Reduction Agency: The shutdown is affecting support for mission critical activities ((e.g., research and development work supporting outside-continental-United-States (OCONUS) operations and evaluation of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive (CBRNE) threats to protect assets and operations both OCONUS and at home).
The Intelligence Community: Contractors provide analysts and operational support for intelligence production (including the President’s Daily Brief), border security, and network defense. These activities are indispensable to national security. The inability to pay contractors performing these essential duties translates to immediate operational degradation.
Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency: The government shutdown has paused fingerprint submissions to the FBI, temporarily halting part of the security clearance process for National Industrial Security Program contractors. While contractors can still upload fingerprints, processing won’t resume until the shutdown ends.
Military Platform Readiness: Shutdown disruptions reduce readiness across aviation, ground, and command, control, communications, computer, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C5ISR) platforms. Deferring maintenance, overhaul, and sustainment work only exacerbates readiness shortfalls and threatens the safety and capabilities of deployed forces.
Pilot Training: The national pilot shortage—already a major concern—is worsening. Furloughs at training ranges and aircraft maintenance facilities have curtailed training operations, posing growing safety-of-flight risks for both military and commercial aviation.
Homeland Security and Public Safety: Critical missions like emergency communications, disaster preparedness and response, cybersecurity, and transportation security are all at risk from the lack of funding. Appropriations lapses make our information technology and physical infrastructure less secure and embolden adversaries to exploit vulnerabilities.