MW 'Buckle up for a long shutdown': Why the government might be closed for weeks
By Victor Reklaitis
The partial federal shutdown is seen lasting two or three weeks, as catalysts for deal aren't at hand yet
A woman on Monday walks past a sign indicating the National Gallery of Art is closed as the U.S. government continues its shutdown.
There's no clear sign yet of a deal to the end the six-day-old U.S. government shutdown, leading to growing expectations that the closure could end up lasting around two or three weeks.
Prediction market Kalshi on Monday was putting the partial shutdown's length at about 21 days, while Polymarket was giving around a 70% chance that it would run until Oct. 15 or later.
Missed paychecks for the military and other federal employees because of the shutdown are widely viewed as likely to put pressure on Washington to make a deal to end it. However, paydays aren't until the end of this week or the middle of next week. U.S. troops have been scheduled to receive paychecks on Oct. 15, and some federal employees have been slated to get paid this coming Friday.
In the record-setting 2018-2019 shutdown that ended after 35 days, the Coast Guard missed out on pay, and that helped put pressure on Washington to reopen the federal government. Federal employees generally receive back pay once agencies reopen, though federal contractors typically miss out on that.
The current shutdown - which began at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time last Wednesday - has happened largely because Democrats and Republicans are locked in a standoff over including an extension for Obamacare subsidies in funding legislation. While the funding bill already has passed the House of Representatives, Democrats in the Senate have managed to block the bill, since 60 votes are needed for it in that chamber and Republicans only have a 53-47 majority.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has declared that his chamber won't be in session in Washington this week since it already has passed the funding bill, and this maneuver has drawn criticism from Democrats. Meanwhile, the Senate is due to hold another vote on the bill on Monday, but there isn't an expectation that it suddenly will find sufficient support.
"We seem to be at the stage of, 'Everything has been said, but not everyone has said it.' Buckle up for a long shutdown," said Chris Krueger, an analyst at TD Cowen's Washington research group, in a note on Monday.
Related: Here's what Washington must do to end the shutdown. It depends on a crucial pocketbook issue.
The current shutdown is looking different from past ones because the Trump White House's Office of Management and Budget has indicated that agencies could pursue mass layoffs. In previous shutdowns, federal employees who weren't classified as essential got furloughed as they have been this month, but they didn't face the threat of layoffs.
For now, mass layoffs aren't imminent, according to Kevin Hassett, a top economic adviser to President Trump. Hassett's comments came in a CNN interview on Sunday, after other White House officials had said last Wednesday that layoffs would start in a day or two but then didn't materialize.
"I think that if the president decides that the negotiations are absolutely going nowhere, then there will start to be layoffs," Hassett said.
The S&P 500 SPX was trading higher Monday, putting the benchmark U.S. stock index on track for its seventh session of gains in a row. Many strategists have emphasized that U.S. stocks tend to shrug off government shutdowns, but some have warned that the current closure is a sign of continued dysfunction in the political system, with implications for investors.
Now read: How much could the government shutdown cost? These numbers show the potential economic hit.
-Victor Reklaitis
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October 06, 2025 12:48 ET (16:48 GMT)
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