The fallout of the 43-day-long government shutdown will linger for some time in Connecticut, even after all federal workers returned to work on Thursday.
Federal workers are awaiting missed paychecks, and programs and services that rely on federal grants have stalled, though both are expected to resume soon. And local food pantries hope to bounce back amid the funding lapse of federal nutrition assistance that led to a confusing back-and-forth over whether recipients would get their November benefits.
Connecticut’s entire congressional of five representatives and two senators opposed the deal brokered by some in the Democratic Party Wednesday night to end the shutdown because it didn’t meet their health care demands and guarantee the extension of expiring enhanced premium subsidies.
Pressure had been building to end the stalemate. As the shutdown dragged on, people in Connecticut and across the country started seeing disruptions to services, multiple missed paychecks for federal workers and travel delays and flight cuts that are expected to continue.
Connecticut didn’t feel the full brunt of the shutdown because the state filled in some of the gaps where federal dollars had temporarily dried up. Still, some lingering effects of the shutdown won’t immediately go away.
“There’s absolutely going to be a ripple effect. It’s not like you hit a switch and everything goes back to normal. But this wasn’t just about one thing,” U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-5th District, said.
All federal workers will get back pay
Federal employees didn’t receive paychecks during the shutdown even if they were required to work, with the exception this time around for members of the military, who got paid twice.
President Donald Trump had suggested at times that furloughed workers might not get back pay, even though it is a requirement of a law that was passed during his first administration.
That 2019 law states federal workers must receive back pay “at the earliest date possible” once the government reopens.
To quash any doubt about those payments, the Senate deal to reopen the government included a guarantee of back pay for those on furlough. It also reverses layoffs that occurred during the shutdown, which were already paused by federal judges.
The timing of payments will vary by agency. But the Trump administration said it plans to start processing payments on Saturday and wrapping up the process by Wednesday, according to a published report.
SNAP is back but food demand is still high
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, will once again be funded.
Disruptions to this nutrition assistance were unprecedented. SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, had never seen cuts before in the program’s history — and what resulted was whiplash over whether recipients would receive their November benefits.
Funding for SNAP came to a halt on Nov. 1 as the shutdown stretched into another month. What resulted was chaos and confusion: November’s monthly benefits weren’t loaded onto Electronic Benefit Transfer or EBT cards, federal judges then ruled that the Trump administration must fund SNAP, and after mixed messaging, Connecticut decided to restore benefits last weekend.
Gov. Ned Lamont had been reluctant to spend state funds on the federal program but pledged to keep it running for the rest of the month even if funding from the feds stalled again. But with the shutdown over, SNAP benefits will come back everywhere.
The whiplash over the state of SNAP benefits put increased demand on local food banks and pantries across Connecticut.
“The emergency food system has definitely sustained some structural damage because of the length of the federal shutdown. It’s going to take a little while for us all to crawl out of this,” Connecticut Foodshare President and CEO Jason Jakubowski said. “Things aren’t going to go back to perfect the minute that the president signs the bill.”
Connecticut Foodshare works with more than 600 food pantries across the state as well as 110 mobile sites. The organization hired temporary workers and drivers to help meet the demand caused by the shutdown, which Jakubowski said has yet to subside.
“We also haven’t seen the lines at our pantries and our mobile trucks go back down to pre-shutdown levels yet either,” Jakubowski said. “Things were not perfect on Sept. 30 before the shutdown started. It has been a very, very difficult year for us in food banking, particularly 2025 as a whole.”
Food aid has already taken a hit this year because of federal cutbacks. Connecticut was hit by cuts earlier this year to The Emergency Food Assistance Program, or TEFAP. And food banks also lost the federal dollars that allowed them to buy in bulk from local farmers and created more access to fresh produce.
Plus, food pantries are preparing for demand of Thanksgiving and the December holidays.
“My message to my staff today was ‘yes, the shutdown is over, but we’re still in a semi-emergency mode at least though end of the calendar year,'” Jakubowski said.
Because of the strain, Jakubowski said, he hopes it’ll encourage stakeholders to have more proactive conversations about addressing hunger, and not just “when there’s a crisis.”
Head Start weathered funding lapses
Most Head Start centers in Connecticut went unscathed, but two local centers faced funding lapses in federal dollars earlier this month. Both continued operating without it after Connecticut’s Office of Early Childhood stepped in with temporary funding for one month.
Head Start centers — early childhood services that serve low-income children from birth to age 5 — start their federal grant cycles on different timelines. Only half a dozen were operating without federal funding in October. But that number ballooned, with an additional 134 programs that were supposed to start on Nov. 1.
That included two in Connecticut: EdAdvance, a Regional Educational Service Center serving western Connecticut, and Children’s Learning Centers of Fairfield County in Stamford. Between the two, they have a combined 395 slots serving children in Head Start and Early Head Start programs.
“We just happen to be in the cohort that’s supposed to start funding in the middle of a shutdown,” EdAdvance executive director Jonathan Costa said. “The timing and the impact of it is greater than I would have ever imagined.”
EdAdvance was supposed to get its five-year federal grant starting on Nov. 1. To help, Costa said, the state fronted his organization half of its total allocation to stay open in November. He said none of the staff missed a paycheck during the shutdown.
Costa said the agreement with the state is paying the money back once the federal government “makes us whole for November.”
“I’m not expecting any prolonged delay once the government is back online to us receiving our funding,” Costa said. “It’ll only be a problem if it takes them into December to do it.”
During the shutdown, Monica Maccera Filppu, the CEO of Children’s Learning Centers of Fairfield County, had sent a message to families that they would stay open and didn’t anticipate “any immediate changes to our services.”
The National Head Start Association said it could take up to two weeks for some centers to be able to start drawing down funds and resources.
Connecticut ultimately didn’t have any disruptions to services or closures of centers. But during the shutdown, 20 programs closed across 17 states and Puerto Rico. That affected more than 9,000 seats in Head Start programs across the country.
