The federal government shutdown on Wednesday sparked uncertainty over how long services in Western Pennsylvania could continue without federal funding, even as Pennsylvania remains stuck in its own 93-day state budget impasse.

Despite Democratic Sen. John Fetterman voting with his Republican colleagues to avert the shutdown, the Senate failed to approve a House-passed spending bill, mostly because of Democrat concerns over health care access.

As a result, hundreds of thousands of workers were expected to be sent home without pay, including in Pennsylvania where the federal government is the third largest employer in Allegheny County, according to state data, with workers in the Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs, law enforcement and research. There are just shy of 17,000 federal wor

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