When Was the Last Government Shutdown in the U.S.? Here's What to Know

With less than 24 hours to avoid a government shutdown, Senate Republicans and Democrats are locked in a bitter stalemate as they’ve yet to make any progress in their funding talks. After a pivotal Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump and congressional leaders on Monday provided no results, Vice President J.D. Vance placed the blame with Democrats. “I think we’re headed to a shutdown, because the Democrats won’t do the right thing,” said Vance, emphasizing that policy differences shouldn’t be “an excuse for shutting down the people’s government and all the essential services that come with it.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has remained firm in his opposition of the funding bill without certain assurances, such as the extension of Obamacare tax credits. “It’s now in the President’s hands. He can avoid a shutdown if he gets the Republican leader to go along with what we want,” Schumer said on Monday. With the government funding deadline of midnight on Tuesday steadily approaching, thoughts are turning to what a shutdown might look like and when they’ve previously occurred.  In reality, although best avoided as they can bring a halt to vital services, government shutdowns are not entirely uncommon in the U.S. There have been 14 shutdowns since 1980, the most recent took place during Trump’s first term. When did the last government shutdown happen? There were three government shutdowns during Trump’s first term. The last occurred in late 2018 and continued over the festive season. The majority of government activity came to a halt for a full 34 days from Dec. 22 to Jan. 25, making it the longest closure of its kind in U.S. history. This beat the previous record of 21 days, set under President Bill Clinton. Per a Congressional Budget Office report, the partial shutdown over the 2018 festive season “delayed approximately $18 billion in federal discretionary spending for compensation and purchases of goods and services and suspended some federal services.” Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of federal workers went without pay during that period, with many raising serious financial concerns. NASA, the Department of Transportation, the IRS, and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) were some of the departments in which workers were put on mandatory furlough. Read More: Top Democrats Leave White House With No Deal as Shutdown Nears What led to the last government shutdown? The shutdown unfolded due to disagreements between Republicans and Democrats over funding—to the amount of $5.7 billion—requested by Trump to construct a wall along the U.S. southern border with Mexico. To Trump’s disapproval, the Senate failed to pass a bill that included the funding for the border wall. A senate vote of at least 60 in favor of the bill was required, but Democrats were unwilling to budge on the border wall funding, a project that was estimated at the time by Democrats to cost up to $70 billion to build and $150 million annually to maintain. Trump had previously threatened to initiate a shutdown. “I would be willing to ‘shut down’ [the] government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for border security, which includes the wall!” the President said via social media in July 2018. Schumer, in January 2019, strongly critiqued Trump’s stance, arguing: “We should not treat hundreds of thousands of Americans, millions of Americans, as leverage to try and get something by pounding the table. That’s not how our government works.” Ultimately, amid the turmoil, Trump signed legislation to temporarily fund the government until Feb. 15, 2019, but that still left the question of border wall funding in the air. Days before the Feb. 15 deadline, a revised bill was passed, allocating just $1.4 billion in funding to wall construction, much less than what Trump had originally envisioned.