TSA officers get partial pay as shutdown’s financial toll worsens

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A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) worker screens passengers and airport employees at O’Hare International Airport on January 07, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois.

Transportation Security Administration airport screeners and other agency employees will receive partial pay, the TSA said Friday, an attempt to tide over some of the lowest-paid federal workers who have been without regular paychecks since the partial government shutdown began more than a month ago.

The pay, which will amount to a little less than half of a paycheck, according to a TSA spokesman, comes after a spike in absences of TSA officers, which has led to closed checkpoints and long lines at some of the country’s busiest airports.

The TSA officers are among the 420,000 federal employees deemed essential and ordered to work during the shutdown, which began on Dec. 22. That group also includes air traffic controllers, federal aviation safety inspectors, FBI agents, federal food safety inspectors, and others.