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What is a shutdown?
Federal government shutdowns occur when spending bills expire, and Congress and the president find themselves at an impasse.
 

In a shutdown, who works and who doesn't?
During the 2013 shutdown, as many as 850,000 workers were furloughed per day, or about 40% of the federal workforce (not counting active-duty military personnel and U.S. Postal Service workers). Roughly 6.6 million employee work days were lost in the 2013 shutdown, with "furloughs affecting workers at the vast majority of agencies," according to the Office of Management and Budget.

How is the military affected?
Active-duty military personnel have always been required to work through shutdowns. Army troops don't abandon their posts and naval ships don't all return to port. In addition, many civilian workers in the Defense Department have been ordered to work through shutdowns.  Other civilian workers in the Defense Department, however, hold jobs that do not meet the urgency threshold to keep working. In 2013, the government furloughed about half of its civilian workers, or about 400,000 employees, leaving a patchwork of various permissible and impermissible activities, according to Federal News Radio.  Meanwhile, veterans' health services would generally continue unabated.

How does a shutdown affect ordinary Americans?
During a shutdown, some government functions may continue, either because Congress has already passed a spending bill for a particular department, because an agency is reliant on funding other than congressional appropriations, or because it is considered vital for the safety of human life or the protection of properties.
However, many activities cease for as long as a shutdown is under way. Here are just a few of the activities that have stopped during previous shutdowns, according to the Congressional Research Service:
* New patients were not accepted into clinical research at the National Institutes of Health, and hotline calls about diseases went unanswered.
* The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ceased disease surveillance.
* Recruitment and testing of federal law-enforcement officials stopped, in one case including the hiring of 400 border patrol agents.
* National Park Service sites and national museums and monuments closed to visitors.
* Work on visa and passport services stopped.
* Inspections for food, consumer products, and workplace safety could not be carried out.
* The Internal Revenue Service was unable to verify income and Social Security numbers in 2013, producing a backlog of 1.2 million requests that may have delayed mortgage and loan approvals.

Would a shutdown affect my tax refund?
Possibly. In 2013, some tax refunds were delayed.

Will I stop getting my mail?
The mail will keep coming, because the U.S. Postal Service is not dependent on federal appropriations for its day-to-day operations.

What happens to the courts?
In many cases, courts have been able to shift money around to keep key operations running during previous shutdowns, though some functions - such as the handling of civil cases and building maintenance - were affected.

Would Social Security checks go out?
If past is prologue, then yes.

How much does a shutdown cost?
"A shutdown is a huge waste of taxpayer dollars, disruptive of government operations, and simply bad management," said John Palguta, a former federal human-resources official who is now an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute.
The most thorough report examining the 2013 shutdown comes from an Office of Management and Budget analysis.
* $2.5B in compensation costs for furloughed workers (whose lack of pay for two weeks hampered consumer spending);
* 120,000 fewer private-sector jobs created in the first half of October;
* $500M lost in visitor spending because of closed National Parks.;
* $11M in lost National Parks and Smithsonian Institution revenue;
* Interest accrued on billions of dollars of payments owed to third parties that the government was unable to pay during the shutdown;
* Resources spent on putting activities in standby or maintaining them in an idle mode;
* 1.2 million Internal Revenue Service identity verification requests that couldn't be processed, causing a delay in private-sector lending and other activities;
* Stalled approvals from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration delayed moving products to market.

Are the workers who stay on the job paid?
Not immediately, at least. Employees who are required to work are not paid until a new spending bill is passed- meaning they are effectively working for free, at least temporarily. Furloughed workers have historically been compensated for back pay through subsequent congressional action, though there is no requirement that such a bill be passed. In 2013, the Office of Management and Budget estimated that $2.5B in pay and benefits was paid for hours not worked government-wide.