The Transportation Security Administration’s employees have not been paid in a month amid a partial government shutdown. If they don’t get a paycheck soon, some TSA agents tell Vanity Fair, they’ll have to look for new jobs.
When the mother of two speaks about how her family is getting by, her voice breaks: “I feel bad going to the food bank and taking those resources from someone who needs it,” she says between tears, adding: “More than I do.
” Kendra—who, like all the agents in this story, has been assigned a pseudonym to speak candidly—hasn’t been paid in a month. Her last check was for $250, and she felt lucky to receive it. She is one of the many TSA agents financially wounded by the ongoing partial government shutdown, and she’s just trying to survive it. When the agency’s funding first lapsed, as congressional Democrats and Republicans hit an impasse over appropriating more money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security, few in the press or the public noticed the consequences for airport employees. “It was kind of like we were living in the twilight zone,” Kendra says, referring to the beginning of the shutdown in mid-February. “No one knew that we were all struggling.” Both she and her spouse have been agents for more than 10 years. They’re based in North Carolina with their two children, ages four and six. They ask themselves whether they should jump ship now or stick it out—a fight-or-flight of sorts. The other career opportunities in her area don’t offer a salary comparable to what she earns as a TSA officer, she says, and she doesn’t want to go back to school. On Friday, Congress began to consider a new funding measure that would get money flowing to most DHS agencies again, with the notable exceptions of ICE and Border Patrol. The Senate passed the bill, which would restore TSA’s operating budget and get these agents paid, but it appears to have been rejected by the House. Congress is preparing to enter a two-week recess without a resolution, and while President Trump has reportedly signed an executive order to restore TSA pay, it’s not clear he has the authority to do so. For Kendra and her colleagues, this all could mean another two weeks without a paycheck. “At that point I might just see if Costco is hiring,” she says. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to feed my family.” Just in the past month, Kendra has relied on gift cards she won in raffles to buy gasoline to drive her children to school. She’s turned to food drives and programs that send her kids home with nonperishable items. When the 30-something mom mentions that she had to ask for help from her family, her voice cracks again. It’s embarrassing to ask for money from her elderly father, she says, especially as a grown person with children. “We’ve got kids, we’ve got bills to pay,” she says. “The electric company is threatening to shut off my power, but I have no money to pay them, so there’s nothing I can do.” As the partial shutdown has dragged on, TSA’s staffing issues have grown, and some US airports have at times descended into chaos. Marathon security lines and missed flights are just part of it. The American transportation system feels as if it’s teetering. This past week, the Trump administration deployed ICE agents to more than a dozen airports, purportedly to help address the bedlam. Unlike TSA employees, these new additions to the air-travel experience remain fully compensated for their time on the job. “The question I’m sure is on everyone’s mind, mine particularly, is: What is going on?” says Julie, a TSA agent in her early 20s. She speaks over the sound of a train in the background. She’s changed her commute to work so that she doesn’t have to pay for gas. “What is happening? Why do we have ICE agents ?” She’s worked for the agency for almost three years now. It started out great, and she hopes to use the job as a way into a career with the government. But two shutdowns later, her once reliable employment feels wobbly. The last paycheck Julie received, for about $720, came on February 16. But she doesn’t have any plans to quit. “I do enjoy this job. I do enjoy the benefits that I’m getting,” she says. “I am financially stable with this pay, and the stability of the job market is not at its best.” It may be a public agency, but Julie is something approaching a company woman. “Management has told us time and time again, ‘keep the political talk to a minimum,’ especially in public,” she says. “Some people are like, ‘I wanna go home, this sucks, this stinks,’ but, you know, what can we do? We’ve just got to keep showing up to work.” But no matter how they might feel about the job normally, many agents are at the end of their rope. Carlton, who works at a major Midwestern airport, says he’s had to beg TSA management for gas cards: “It’s demoralizing having to go to your higher-ups and go, ‘Hey, can I please have some gas so I can keep working?’” He’s in his early 20s, and he primarily works at baggage claim due to a self-described inability to deal with rude passengers. He remembers all of his bad encounters with travelers, citing one instance when someone called him racist because the body scanner alarm went off on them. “It does leave a bad taste in your mouth if you can’t separate your work mind from the rest of your life,” he says. “During a shutdown, that just gets way worse, because you can’t separate the work mind from the living mind.” Carlton’s last paycheck hit in mid-February, and it was different from what he received during a past shutdown: This time, a whole month’s worth of deductions were taken out on just one half-paycheck. “Last government shutdown, it was a partial paycheck, but it was one week’s worth of pay and only taxes were taken out,” he says, referring to the November shutdown. “It could get you a decent amount. You could really stretch it out and get a rent payment and a half, maybe.” He reflects on that previous shutdown almost like it was the halcyon days, a better era. He became a TSA agent after witnessing the fallout of 9/11 while growing up and feeling drawn to the “mission behind” the agency. Carlton says he checks bags and reviews every boarding pass as if his own family members are on the flight. “The only reason I’ve held out this long is because I truly believe in what I’m doing,” he says. “And it’s just harder and harder to accomplish.” Now he says that if it weren’t for his upcoming vacation, he’d be putting in his two weeks’ notice on April 1. He’ll draw the line at three nearly back-to-back government shutdowns. “I’m just going to quit,” he says. “I could go back to warehouse jobs. It’s gonna hurt more. It’s not going to pay as much. But it’s more stable at that point.”
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