U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the White House on October 10, 2025, announcing the reduction in U.S. drug prices at the White House in Washington, DC.
Kent Nishimura | Reuters
President Donald Trump said Saturday that despite the federal government shutdown, his administration has “identified funding” to pay troops next week.
“I am exercising my authority as Commander in Chief and directing Secretary of the Army Pete Hegseth to use all available funds to pay our troops on October 15th,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether all or some U.S. military personnel would be paid or what funds the government would use to pay them.
Some economists say paychecks are scheduled to be paid to 1.3 million active-duty U.S. military personnel on Oct. 15, increasing the potential political cost of the impasse.
“We believe the Oct. 15 military payday could be the key event that forces compromises to restore funding, and we expect the shutdown to end by mid-October,” Goldman Sachs economists Lonnie Walker and Alec Phillips said in a note to clients.
The Trump administration began laying off thousands of federal employees across various agencies on Friday, the 10th day of the government shutdown.
President Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the number of federal employees who will be laid off will be “a large number.”
“It’s going to be Democratic-oriented,” Trump said, repeating his promise to target programs he thinks Democratic officials would like. Uncertainty about which federal employees will be paid and who may be laid off or laid off has heightened worker anxiety.
Airline industry officials have expressed concern that the move will place additional strain on already understaffed air traffic controllers across the country.
Air traffic controllers’ union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, announced Friday that they will receive partial pay for the first time next week, but are not expected to receive their full pay until Oct. 28 unless funding issues are resolved.
The union said it plans to begin distributing informational flyers about the closure’s impact on air traffic controllers at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on Tuesday. Similar events are planned at other airports in Washington, D.C., Chicago and Philadelphia.
“Participating air traffic controllers and other aviation safety professionals will explain to travelers how the government shutdown poses unnecessary risks and undermines efficiency to the National Airspace System (NAS),” the union said.
—CNBC’s Jeff Cox and Dan Mangan contributed to this report.
