A temporary deal between President Trump and Democrats Friday ended a month-long partial government shutdown that affected hundreds of thousands of federal workers. Members of the Coast Guard were among those who have been working for weeks without pay, because unlike the other branches of the United States military, the Coast Guard receives funding from the Department of Homeland Security.
Active-duty members have been scraping to get by. There are reports, for example, of Coast Guard families relying on food banks to make ends meet or dipping into their limited savings in the midst of this political dispute.
Meanwhile, retirees, who get paid only once a month and some of whom depend on their pension as their main source of income, were looking at missing their first pension check at the end of the month, said Stephen Flynn, founding director of the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University, who served in the Coast Guard for 20 years before retiring in 2002.
