President Donald Trump signed legislation late at night, formally ending the longest government shutdown in American history as more than 650,000 furloughed federal workers received orders to return to their offices Thursday morning. The federal government is set to reopen after being shut down for a record-setting 43 days after the House on Wednesday evening approved a bill to resume operations across agencies, with President Trump quickly signing the spending package into law.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum instructing federal employees who had been furloughed during the government shutdown to return to work tomorrow, stating that agencies should take all necessary steps to ensure that offices open in a prompt and orderly manner on November 13, 2025. The directive came shortly after the House passed the funding bill by a vote of 222 to 209, with six Democrats joining Republicans to provide the narrow margin necessary for passage.
The shutdown likely led to a loss of 60,000 private-sector jobs, according to Trump’s top economic adviser, demonstrating the substantial economic damage inflicted by the six-week funding lapse. However, conservative analysts argue that the permanent workforce reductions and program eliminations achieved during the shutdown will generate long-term savings that dwarf temporary economic costs.
More than a million federal employees went unpaid during the longest government shutdown in US history, while nearly 42 million Americans were left in limbo when the Department of Agriculture announced it could not distribute food stamps for the month November. The human toll of the shutdown created mounting political pressure on both parties, ultimately forcing eight moderate Democrats to defect from their caucus and provide votes necessary to advance the Republican funding bill.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said her department began work last night once the government reopened to issue full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits for November, though the timing of actual benefit distribution remained unclear. The Trump administration withdrew its Supreme Court appeal challenging lower court orders requiring SNAP payments, with Solicitor General John Sauer stating in a filing that the underlying dispute is now moot.
Most agencies are now funded through January under the new stopgap continuing resolution, though the Veterans Affairs Department, Agriculture Department and legislative branch agencies are funded through September. The short timeline until the next potential shutdown creates another confrontation point in less than three months, though Democrats face even greater difficulty maintaining opposition given their demonstrated inability to sustain prolonged funding lapses.
More than one million federal employees who worked or were furloughed during the shutdown without pay will soon begin receiving regular paychecks, as well as backpay for the checks they missed for the duration of the funding lapse. Back pay for some federal employees will begin going out as early as Sunday, according to a memo from the White House budget office, while others will have to wait until Wednesday, Nov. 19.
Multiple federal agencies have told their employees to report to work Thursday, with government workers at the Health and Human Services, Justice, Interior, and Housing and Urban Development departments all advised to come in Thursday. One of the emails referred to the funding lapse as the “Democratic shutdown,” continuing a trend of partisan language on display from various agencies leading up to and during the government’s closure.
Health and Human Services employees were told the agency would try to get furloughed employees paychecks with back pay on or before Nov. 21, providing some certainty to workers who have missed multiple paychecks during the shutdown. However, it’s unclear when exactly furloughed workers will get their back pay or how fast paychecks might resume, creating continued financial stress for families who have depleted savings and fallen behind on bills.
The funding deal guarantees those workers receive backpay despite the Trump administration threatening to flout a 2019 law that already required such retroactive compensation. The legislative guarantee represents a retreat from the administration’s earlier position that furloughed workers might not receive compensation, demonstrating the political limits of Trump’s hardline approach even after Democrats capitulated on healthcare subsidies.
Workers at some of America’s most treasured national parks will find a mess when they return to their jobs — confronting graffiti scrawled across iconic landscapes, sanitation issues and park-goers who have been illegally camping, BASE jumping, flying drones or hiking while rangers were unable to work. The National Park Service faces months of cleanup and repair work, with entrance fee revenue lost during the shutdown delaying construction projects and visitor services.
Delta Airlines said it was “extremely grateful” to the federal employees who worked to “keep our skies safe and secure” without a paycheck, stating they look forward to bringing our operation back to full capacity over the next few day. Similarly, American Airlines said a reopened government means hardworking government aviation safety and security professionals will be paid, and the flying public will have deserved travel predictability.
An economist with Anderson Economic Group said when beer drops, you know something’s wrong, noting that beer and auto sales both took a tumble in October. Auto sales were down 4% in October from September, and beer sales were down 6%, providing concrete evidence of the shutdown’s impact on consumer spending beyond federal workers directly affected by the funding lapse.
The Capitol Visitor Center reopened to the public this morning, with tour guides outfitted in crisp, red blazers dotting Emancipation Hall as individuals and large groups streamed in through the main entrance. A visitor from Raleigh, North Carolina, told reporters that Washington had been a ghost town, with his cab driver having waited three hours for a fare and only having two jobs the whole day, noting that it’s not just affected SNAP and TSA and air traffic controllers but the whole city of Washington, D.C.
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, the National Air and Space Museum and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazey Center will reopen on Nov. 14, allowing tourists to once again visit America’s most popular museums. The institutions had been closed since October 12 after running out of prior-year funding to maintain operations during the shutdown.
The legislation will ban all agencies from carrying out any RIFs through January, providing temporary job security for federal workers. However, the protections expire when the continuing resolution runs out in late January, allowing the Trump administration to resume workforce restructuring once the temporary funding extension concludes. Conservative policy analysts note that the two-month reprieve simply delays inevitable reductions rather than permanently protecting positions deemed unnecessary or inconsistent with administration priorities.
President Donald Trump signaled a willingness to work with Democratic leaders on health care, moments before signing legislation to end the government shutdown, though his comments provided no concrete commitments about supporting Affordable Care Act subsidy extensions. The resolution of the funding battle tees up a fresh fight over health care tax credits under the Affordable Care Act, which will expire at the end of the year, with Senate Democrats having secured a vote on the issue by mid-December as part of the deal that ended the shutdown.
Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee said he won’t pursue damages under a provision of the shutdown deal that lets senators sue the federal government if their data has been seized by law enforcement without notice. The controversial provision allowing senators to pursue $500,000 in damages drew criticism as retroactive protection for Republican senators whose communications were subpoenaed during investigations, though House Republicans pledged to attempt repealing the language.
President Donald Trump hosted financial industry leaders for a private dinner at the White House Wednesday night, with CEOs invited including JP Morgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon, Morgan Stanley’s Ted Pick, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, Nasdaq’s Adena Friedman and Apollo Global Management’s Marc Rowan. The celebration with Wall Street executives demonstrated Trump’s confidence that the shutdown’s resolution represented political victory despite polling showing most voters blamed Republicans for the crisis.
As federal operations resume after 43 days, the question facing Washington is whether the Trump administration’s victory in forcing Democratic capitulation without healthcare guarantees emboldens the president to maintain even more aggressive negotiating postures during the January funding deadline. Democrats have demonstrated that their caucus lacks the discipline to sustain shutdowns when human costs mount, providing Republicans with blueprint for future negotiations where patience and determination overcome unfavorable public opinion polling.
Conservative strategists celebrate the outcome as complete vindication of Trump’s hardline approach, arguing that the administration correctly calculated that moderate Democrats would crack before Republicans abandoned their position. The precedent established during this crisis will shape fiscal negotiations throughout the remainder of Trump’s second term, with the president now possessing credible threat to maintain funding lapses until Democrats capitulate on policy demands regardless of electoral consequences or human suffering.
