President Donald Trump plans to deny federal employees billions of dollars in back pay when the government finally reopens after the shutdown, according to U.S. media reporting.

The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, which Trump signed during the last government shutdown, is widely understood to automatically pay furloughed workers for their forced time off during a government shutdown.

But a new White House memo argues that, thanks to a single phrase, the law doesn’t automatically cover furloughed employees, Axios reported.

If that’s the case, the roughly 750,000 furloughed employees could lose out on billions of dollars’ worth of pay.

Congressional Budget Office Director Phillip Swagel estimated, in a letter to lawmakers, that the furloughed employees’ compensation co

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