Live updates, news and analysis

College-bound students and their families can still apply for financial aid during the shutdown through the government’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid form.

But the Department of Education warned that information on its website “may not be maintained, and inquiries may not receive a response” while the government remains unfunded.

The 2026 FAFSA filing season officially opened last week. Many families heavily rely on financial aid to help cover the cost of college, and experts often recommend filing for aid as early as possible.

— Jessica Dickler

To predict what factors might ultimately push politicians to bring the current shutdown to an end, Wall Street analysts are looking to the past.

Citi’s Daniel Tobon wrote in a client note that the last shutdown, which began in late 2018 during Trump’s first term, was resolved partly due to frustration over increasing delays at airports.

Raymond James analyst Ed Mills specifically pointed to the temporary shutdown of operations at New York’s LaGuardia Airport in 2019 as a crisis that forced politicians’ hands.

Furloughed federal workers going without a second paycheck during that shutdown also added to pressure, Tobon said.

This time around, partial funding lapses for Defense Department staff is generating concerns around military pay, Mills noted.

Evercore ISI strategist Sarah Bianchi said that federal worker layoffs could push Democrats to acquiesce.

“During the shutdown, the press will be writing on a whole array of local shutdown-related disruptions, from longer-than-usual TSA lines at airports to towns that depend economically on nearby national parks being open,” Bianchi wrote to clients on Tuesday.

“If any of these stories go viral, it could shape the national narrative and push both sides to compromise sooner.”

— Alex Harring

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he hopes that Senate Democrats “come to their senses soon” and vote for the GOP’s continuing resolution to temporarily fund the government.

“The longer this goes on, the more pain will be inflicted,” he said during a news conference Wednesday morning alongside other Republican leaders.

“Every single bit of this was entirely avoidable,” Johnson said.

Johnson and other GOP leaders repeatedly put the onus on Democrats for the shutdown.

“Democrats want to play the emotional games with the lives and the likelihood of Americans,” Johnson said.

“Unfortunately, we are here this morning, in a government shutdown that Democrats wanted,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said at the presser.

“This could have been avoided,” Thune added.

Both parties have blamed each other for the shutdown, underscoring the partisan gridlock that has stalled negotiations.

— Erin Doherty

The Department of Health and Human Services said in its contingency plan that it expects more than 32,000 of its almost 80,000 staff to be furloughed during the shutdown.

The agency oversees the federal health agencies responsible for tracking disease outbreaks, approving new drugs and funding scientific research, among other efforts critical to public health. That includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. 

HHS said some activities will continue, such as the ability to respond to pandemics, flu and hurricanes and to monitor disease outbreaks. The NIH will also continue research and clinical services necessary to protect human life and government property.

But HHS said research contracts and grants to external organizations, such as universities, will freeze during the shutdown. The NIH will not admit new patients to its research hospital unless medically necessary, while the CDC will be “hampered” in its ability to provide the public with health-related information, HHS said.

The FDA will not process new drug applications and medical device submissions, or support staff that work to protect patients from unsafe or ineffective drugs, unless it is an imminent threat. The FDA also won’t be able to monitor the use of new ingredients in animal food, preventing the agency from ensuring that meat, milk and eggs of livestock are safe for the public to eat.

— Annika Kim Constantino

John Mullen, president and CEO of Parsons Capital Management — which ranked No. 1 on CNBC’s Financial Advisor 100 for 2025, a list of the top 100 financial advisors in the U.S. — said he has viewed previous government shutdowns mostly as “short-term blips.”

“Very rarely does it have some sort of lasting impact,” Mullen told CNBC in an interview Wednesday morning.

He said the firm’s investment approach reflects a longer-term view. “In general, we don’t think this is going to disrupt the major trends that we’ve identified and are enthusiastic about,” he said.

Those trends include artificial intelligence, quantum computing and the companies poised to benefit from a broader deregulation push, he said.

Still, this shutdown could be riskier because of the Trump administration’s threat to make some federal government furloughs permanent.

“If the government does follow through on plans to fire workers, that does change the calculus,” Mullen said. Massive job losses “could have a true lasting negative impact,” particularly at a time when “our economy is not roaring along,” he said.

— Jessica Dickler

The federal government shutdown won’t stop Social Security checks from being sent out — but it may affect certain services that beneficiaries rely on.

Trump said on the eve of the shutdown that the federal funding lapse may lead to “irreversible” actions, such as cutting benefits for social programs. Trump did not elaborate on exactly which programs could be affected. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for further information.

“We’re still telling people that checks are going out,” said Maria Freese, senior legislative representative at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

In a Sept. 24 contingency plan, the Social Security Administration outlined the services that would and would not be available in the event of a government shutdown.

Out of more than 51,000 employees, around 6,000 will be furloughed, the agency said.

Among the services that will continue are applications for benefits, requests for appeals and issuance of original and replacement Social Security cards, the agency said.

Services slated to be discontinued include benefit verifications, earnings record corrections and updates, replacement Medicare cards and overpayments processing, it said.

— Lorie Konish

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called Republican claims that Democrats were shutting down the government to give health care to undocumented immigrants “a total, absolute, effing lie.”

“They [Republicans] are afraid of the truth,” Schumer said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“They know what they’ve done to health care has decimated health care for so much of America.”

“There are Republicans on the Senate side who are saying, ‘Let’s sit down and negotiate,'” he said.

“We should, and it has to, by the way, it’s not just [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune. It has to include [House Speaker Mike] Johnson,” he said.

— Luke Fountain

Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley said neither the U.S. economy nor the business community need a government shutdown right now, amid this “sensitive time for our country.”

“It’s not a good thing,” Farley said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “We really need the leaders in D.C. to come together. It’s a very sensitive time for our country. We need the leadership to unite. We cannot have a shutdown. That is bad for the economy and bad for our country.”

Farley’s comments came as the automaker was hosting an inaugural event in Detroit to promote the “essential economy” of U.S. skilled trades and labor.

– Michael Wayland

The Federal Trade Commission said it will be closed during the shutdown, preventing consumers from reporting fraud.

“The FTC is closed due to the lapse in funding,” the agency’s website currently says.

The FTC is in charge of protecting consumers from unfair and fraudulent business practices. It also has oversight of anticompetitive mergers and partnerships.

The closure “means we won’t be able to answer your questions on X. Consumers cannot report fraud or register for Do Not Call during this time,” the agency’s Office of Technology said in a post on X.

On Tuesday, the FTC announced a lawsuit against real estate giants Zillow and Redfin alleging antitrust violations.

— Luke Fountain

The Senate rejected a last-ditch measure on Tuesday evening to keep the government funded through Nov. 20.

The final vote was 55-45, falling short of the 60-vote threshold that would have passed the measure in the upper chamber.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted with Democrats to oppose the measure, while Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Angus King, I-Maine, voted with Republicans in support.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., presides over a razor-thin majority, so he needs at least seven Democrats to vote with his party to get any legislation passed.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., however, is trying to keep his Democratic colleagues on board with his effort to stand firm on his party’s health care demands.

Schumer has faced pressure from the progressive wing of his party to oppose any government funding legislation unless it includes key health-care concessions.

— Erin Doherty

With all eyes on the impending government shutdown, the White House confirmed late Tuesday that it withdrew the nomination of E.J. Antoni, Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Trump nominated Antoni, an economist with the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, after he fired former BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer in response to her agency releasing a weak monthly jobs report.

Antoni “is a brilliant economist and an American patriot that will continue to do good work on behalf of our great country,” a White House official told CNBC in a statement Tuesday night.

“President Trump is committed to fixing the longstanding failures at the BLS that have undermined the public’s trust in critical economic data. The President plans to announce a new nominee very soon.”

Antoni’s nomination wasn’t the only one yanked late Tuesday: The White House also withdrew Brian Quintenz’s nomination to chair the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Politico reported.

CNN first reported Antoni’s withdrawal.

— Kevin Breuninger

The ADP’s private payroll report came in surprisingly weak on Wednesday, offering a negative reading of the labor market with other big job data releases in limbo.

Private payrolls lost 32,000 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis in September, marking the biggest decrease since 2023. Economists polled by Dow Jones had been expecting payrolls to add 45,000 roles in the month.

This report comes hours into the government shutdown, which would inhibit releases on nonfarm payrolls and jobless claims previously expected for later this week if a resolution isn’t reached. In such a situation, the ADP’s data could take on more significance than it typically does for economic policymakers and investors looking to assess the labor market’s health.

— Alex Harring, Jeff Cox

The official website of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is prominently displaying a politically partisan message blaming Trump’s political opponents for the government shutdown.

Visitors to the site are currently greeted with a pop-up message reading, “The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.”

After closing that window, the same message appears in a bright-red banner at the top of the site.

The politically charged message is highly unusual for a government website. Some critics are questioning whether the language violates the Hatch Act, the law limiting political conduct by federal employees.

Air traffic controller training will continue at the U.S. academy in Oklahoma as well as in the field, according to a Department of Transportation shutdown contingency plan.

The U.S. has ramped up hiring of new air traffic controllers, though training takes months. Thinly staffed facilities, such as those serving airports in the New York City area, have disrupted flights in recent years, angering travelers and airline executives alike.

In the shutdown, 13,294 air traffic controllers will continue to work, though without pay, according to the DOT. More than 11,000 FAA employees are subject to furlough, the agency said.

A more than one-month government shutdown ended in January 2019 after a shortage of air traffic controllers sparked disruptions at New York City airports.

— Leslie Josephs

Air travel will continue during a government shutdown, meaning passengers can still board flights and go through security as usual.

But Airlines for America — a trade group that represents major carriers like Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and others — warned that the aviation system “may need to slow down, reducing efficiency” during a shutdown.

Government workers who are considered “essential,” like TSA officers and air traffic controllers, are required to continue working.

The shutdown could cost the U.S. travel industry $1 billion per week, according to estimates from the U.S. Travel Association, which represents major hotel groups and others.

“The longer a shutdown drags on, the more likely we are to see longer TSA lines, flight delays and cancellations, national parks in disrepair and unnecessary delays in modernizing travel infrastructure,” Geoff Freeman, the group’s president, said in a statement.

When the government shut down under the first Trump administration in late 2018 and early 2019, callouts from a few air traffic controllers along the U.S. East Coast snarled air traffic, putting pressure on lawmakers to reach a deal.

— Michele Luhn

Sen. Steve Daines urged Democrats to approve a temporary funding extension so the shutdown can end and the two parties can reach a long-term agreement.

“This will come to an end,” the Montana Republican told CNBC Wednesday morning. “But in this particular case, it will come to an end when five Democrats join the rest of us and pass this temporary extension.”

Daines said negotiations over the appropriation process had been “going very well” until Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., “decided to shut things down.” Schumer is “yielding” to the far-left side of his party in allowing a shutdown, Daines said.

“There’s no reason we should be in a shutdown,” Daines said. “It costs the taxpayer money, it disrupts government services, and at the end of the day, it doesn’t really deliver any political or policy objective.”

— Alex Harring

Gold prices rallied to fresh records Wednesday morning as the shutdown sent investors seeking safe-haven trades.

Spot gold was trading at $3,893.06 early Wednesday morning. U.S. gold futures for December delivery popped to $3,918.10, rising closer to the closely followed $4,000 mark.

Gold has long been considered a risk-off asset for investors that can provide refuge during times of economic and political turmoil.

— Alex Harring

Evercore ISI strategist Sarah Bianchi doesn’t expect a long government shutdown after a few Senate Democrats voted for a stopgap funding bill last night that ultimately fell short of the required votes.

“Three Senate Democrats voted for the bill tonight, offset by one Republican against. There are certainly five more Senate Democrats who are uncomfortable with shutdowns and will not want this to go on very long, especially if the threat of federal worker layoffs becomes more real. Given this, and the fact that Republican leaders already have expressed openness to negotiating on health care, we think the shutdown will be relatively short,” she wrote in a note.

— Fred Imbert

William Lee, chief economist at the Milken Institute, noted this shutdown could have a greater impact on the economy than previous ones.

“The history of shutdowns really has had so little impact on the real economy because essentially, by the end of the shutdowns, everything goes back to the way it was,” he said Wednesday in a “Worldwide Exchange” interview. “But this time there may be some big changes because both sides are being very strategic about it. The Republicans are saying, ‘this is a good time for us to implement the kind of changes Elon Musk put in place with DOGE.’ … The Democrats are really bearing down and saying, ‘this is our turn to be strategic and get back the legislation we want to put in place.”

He added that both sides are playing more “chess than checkers.”

— Fred Imbert

U.S. stock futures were under pressure Wednesday after lawmakers failed to reach a deal that would avoid a government shutdown.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 241 points, or 0.5%. S&P 500 futures shed 0.6% along with Nasdaq-100 futures.

— Fred Imbert

A shutdown could delay the release of key economic reports that the government regularly publishes, which are closely watched by financial markets.

In a contingency plan released Friday, the Labor Department said that the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that produces the government reports on the economy, will “suspend all operations” in the event of a shutdown.

“Economic data that are scheduled to be released during the lapse will not be released,” the plan said.

The next BLS employment report was set to be released Friday. The BLS’s Consumer Price Index reading for September is scheduled to be released on Oct. 15.

Wells Fargo economist Michael Pugliese noted last week that after the last full government shutdown in 2013, the monthly jobs and consumer price index reports “were delayed by about two weeks.”

“Collection, processing and publication delays stretched into the following month as well,” Pugliese noted.

In the partial shutdown that began in late 2018, Pugliese noted, “the first look at” gross domestic product growth for the fourth quarter of that year “was delayed about a month, as was December 2018 data on retail sales and personal income & spending.”

— Kevin Breuninger and Jeff Cox

European markets were slightly higher during early morning deals, as global investors monitor the U.S. government shutdown.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index was up 0.1% shortly after the opening bell, with sectors and major bourses pointing in opposite directions.

— Chloe Taylor, Tasmin Lockwood

Market participants are likely to brush off the impact of the government shutdown, according to Luke Bartholomew, deputy chief economist at Aberdeen, particularly if it proves to be a short-term issue.

Asked whether investors were likely to take issue with the shutdown, Bartholomew replied: “Probably not, to be honest. I mean, if it was bound up with the debt ceiling issue as they have been in the past then potentially there’s risks around that, but I would be surprised if the market doesn’t ultimately shrug this off.”

Bartholomew conceded there are questions about data availability, with the closely watched nonfarm payrolls report not expected to be released on Friday because of the shutdown.

“Maybe that influences the Fed in some way. Although they do have a wide variety of other private sector data that they can rely on,” Bartholomew told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”

— Sam Meredith

Republicans, who hold the White House and slim majorities in both chambers of Congress, wanted to pass a stopgap bill to maintain funding at current levels until late November. They needed at least seven Democrats to help them in the Senate, where 60 votes are required to overcome the filibuster.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and a group of Democrats had previously joined Republicans in March to pass a six-month extension of government funding.

But this time around, Democrats have united around several demands, including that any short-term funding bill include an extension of enhanced Obamacare tax credits, which are due to lapse at year’s end. The enhanced subsidies reduce the costs of health insurance premiums for a wider swath of Affordable Care Act enrollees.

Republicans balked, accusing Democrats of holding the government hostage by standing in the way of continued federal funding unless their health-care demands are met.

GOP leaders have also argued that their “clean” continuing resolution is nonpartisan, and that policy negotiations can continue without shutting down the government.

Democrats countered that the GOP proposal actually is partisan, since Republicans are seeking to extend funding following the passage of a controversial spending bill that narrowly passed in July over the objections of all congressional Democrats.

Democrats have also slammed Republicans for refusing to negotiate, and for leaving Washington, D.C., as the shutdown deadline approached.

Trump and other Republicans have also accused Democrats of seeking to give health-care benefits to undocumented immigrants — a claim that Democrats reject as a lie, noting that federal law prohibits it.

— Kevin Breuninger

While insisting that Republicans do not want to shut the government down, Trump said his administration could exploit the situation to hurt Democrats.

“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for [Democrats],” Trump said at the White House on Tuesday, “like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”

That could include cutting “large numbers of people” on government benefits, Trump said, before quickly adding, “We don’t want to do that, but we don’t want fraud, waste and abuse.”

— Kevin Breuninger

“Democrats Have Shutdown the Government,” a White House webpage said right after midnight, featuring a clock detailing the time that has passed since the shutdown began.

But California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said on X, “Donald Trump just shut down the government,” underscoring the fact that both parties blame the other for the dramatic pause in federal services and functions.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris posted on X: “President Trump and Congressional Republicans just shut down the government because they refused to stop your health care costs from rising. Let me be clear: Republicans are in charge of the White House, House, and Senate. This is their shutdown.”

— Dan Mangan, Riya Bhattacharjee

During the last full government shutdown in 2013, about 850,000 federal employees were furloughed, meaning they were required to take unpaid leave, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated Tuesday that the current shutdown would lead to about 750,000 employees being furloughed.

“The total daily cost of their compensation would be roughly $400 million,” the CBO told Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, in response to her request for information on the impact of a shutdown.

The agency’s estimate noted that the number of furloughed employees could vary from day to day “because some agencies might furlough more employees the longer a shutdown persists and others might recall some initially furloughed employees.”

Furloughed workers will get back pay upon their return.

But Trump’s Office of Management and Budget has threatened to make some of those job cuts permanent, by warning federal agencies in a recent memo to prepare for mass firings in the event of a shutdown.

— Kevin Breuninger

The full shutdown began at midnight Wednesday after Democratic and Republican leaders failed to agree on even a short-term deal to keep the government fully funded past the current fiscal year.

It is unclear just how long the shutdown will last, or how widespread its impacts will be.

The federal government has either shut down or experienced funding gaps 14 times since 1980.

The longest shutdown on record started in late 2018, when the government partially shuttered for about five weeks amid disputes over funding Trump’s proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall.

— Kevin Breuninger