House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) holds a press conference at the U.S. Capitol during the sixth day if the federal government shutdown on Oct. 6, 2025. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the stopgap funding bill for a fifth time later in the day.

WASHINGTON ‒ President Donald Trump threatened to block furloughed federal workers from receiving back pay once the government shutdown is over, claiming some of the employees "don't deserve" the compensation.

Trump's warning ratcheted up his pressure on Senate Democrats to end the standoff over funding the government and invited new legal scrutiny over the White House's tactics on the seventh day of the shutdown.

“It depends on who we’re talking about,” Trump said Oct. 7 in the Oval Office, responding to a question from a reporter about whether furloughed workers are owed back pay. “I can tell you this, the Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy."

Trump added: “For the most part, we're going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don't deserve to be taken care of, and we'll take care of them in a different way."

Trump’s threat comes as the White House has floated a new legal analysis claiming the 750,000 employees furloughed during the shutdown are not entitled to back pay when they return. A Trump administration official confirmed the analysis to USA TODAY.

Withholding payments to furloughed workers when they return would mark a dramatic departure from previous shutdowns, including the government's last shutdown in 2019, when Trump was president.

White House claims loophole on back pay

The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, which was passed during the last shutdown, says that federal workers who are furloughed during a lapse in government funding “shall be paid for the period of the lapse.” The law states that it applies to any government funding lapse after Dec. 22, 2018.

But the White House argues in a new legal memo that this law does not automatically cover all furloughed workers because of an amendment approved nine days after its original passage in January 2019, according to Axios, which first reported the White House's new opinion about back pay.

The amendment states that furloughed workers would be paid back "subject to the enactment of appropriations Acts ending the lapse."

Yet the White House's new interpretation undermines the Trump administration's own Office of Personnel Management guidance, which released a memo in September that said furloughed workers would get paid.

“After the lapse in appropriations has ended, employees who were required to perform excepted work during the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those work periods,” the OPM memo says.

Layoffs loom

Trump's threat to deny furloughed federal workers their pay comes as he's vowed to eliminate "Democrat agencies" from the government, cut programs and pursue mass layoffs of federal workers if the government remains shut down. The Trump administration has also withheld funding for infastructure projects in Democratic-led states and cities.

"Oh, sure," Trump said when asked whether the White House has identified which programs it will cut. "We'll be announcing it pretty soon. But we have a lot of things that we're going to eliminate and permanently eliminate."

The White House last week said layoffs were "imminent." Russell Vought, the White House director of the Office of Management and Budget, told Republican lawmakers on Oct 1. that reductions in force would begin in "a day or two."

Yet despite the threats, no layoffs have taken place.

Trump on Oct. 7 suggested layoff could happen by the end of the week if Republicans and Democrats don't reach a deal to end the shutdown. "I'll be able to tell you that in four or five days if this keeps going on," the president said when asked how many workers could be fired.

Democrats have pushed for health care policy changes in any funding bill to reopen the government. They rejected the White House's claim that back pay isn't guaranteed to furloughed workers.

"This is just more fear mongering from a president who wants a blank check for lawlessness. It won't work," Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, said in a post on X.

Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson on Oct. 7 referenced the White House's new analysis on back pay as he called on Democrats to vote for a Republican-backed bill to fund the government at existing levels through Nov. 21.

“If that is true, that should turn up the urgency and the necessity of the Democrats doing the right thing here,” Johnson said. Johnson added that he hopes federal workers get back pay, and said Trump has told him he feels the same way.

Contributing: Zachary Schermele of USA TODAY

Reach Joey Garrison @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: President Trump says some furloughed federal workers ‘don’t deserve’ back pay

Reporting by Joey Garrison and Zac Anderson, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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