When the government shuts down this weekend, as now seems likely, service members will be expected to report to duty as normal, but their pay will be delayed. That will hurt military families, especially those who are food-insecure or living paycheck to paycheck, National Military Family Association Besa Pinchotti said Thursday night on CNN.

“There are 16,000 military spouses who are employed by the federal government,” Pinchotti said. “There are childcare centers that won’t be able to take care of kids, so that those other military spouses are able to go to work. WIC offices on installations will be closed. And so, basically, there are people, all over the country, just holding on, wondering, what’s next? What’s going to happen next week? How will they pay for groceries next week?”

In recent shutdowns, service members were paid because Congress had already funded DOD or rushed through stand-alone legislation to ensure service member pay. Neither has happened ahead of this expected shutdown.

Defense Commissary Agency photo