Profile: How one furloughed museum worker is barely getting by

The paychecks have stopped filling up the mailbox, but not the bills. Fred Turner is angry – and worried. 

Congress says government workers will get paid when the shutdown ends, but Turner thinks people like him—already struggling—may fall through the cracks.

Turner has been working at the American History Museum in Washington, D.C., for three years. He does a bit of everything for $9.90 an hour – from setting up food and condiment stations and running the dish room to mopping the floors and cleaning the tables.

But like thousands of government contractors around the country, Turner has been at home with no pay, and perhaps worse, no clarity.

“I know they are talking about government workers. The government will pay them back,” he said. “But we work for private contractors so we don’t know if we are going to get paid. Even if we get unemployment, I don’t know if we’ll have to pay the government back once we start working.”

If he could get President Obama in a room, he says he’d tell him that the shutdown is hurting a lot of people, not just government workers. “We are being affected by it just as real as they are,” he said.

It doesn’t pay much, but it’s a job that gives Turner the pride of working. But as the shutdown puts a dent in Turner’s financial stability, he also sees a larger price.

“It looks terrible,” he says. “You have people from all over the world who come from poor countries and they come to America to try to find a better life. They’ve been told, ‘You can come here and make a better living.’ But then they see this. And they think, ‘If something like that is going on in that country, why would I want to go there?’”

The Washington, D.C., native says the politicians need to get the message. “If you all can’t pay your bills, then how the hell are we supposed to pay our bills?”

Well, he’s not – at least, not entirely. Turner lives paycheck to paycheck, and he does it not knowing when the next one will come.

“Everything I make goes to bills,” he says. “I don’t have extra money to do other things with. I have to watch every penny that I spend. I can’t go out and go shopping or take the kids to the movies or treat myself to something because every little penny I get, I have to make sure I have enough money to make sure that every bill is getting paid.”  

Even worse, the shutdown is putting his good name – and credit rating – at risk. He says his mortgage payment is going to be late. Turner fears informing the people he owes money to that their payments won’t be in on time.

“Whatever little bit of money I’ve got, I have to stretch it. And that is just to pay the bills,” he said.

The D.C. native experienced the 1995-96 shutdown firsthand during the Clinton Administration. But with a family now, Turner’s circumstances during the shutdown are radically different 17 years later.

“I didn’t have all of the responsibilities that I have now. I didn’t have to deal with all of the finances I have to deal with now, like trying to buy a home and helping to raise kids.”

Even before the shutdown, Turner was just barely making ends meet. He doesn’t have health insurance because he can’t afford it, he said. He’d hoped that Congress would pass a bill to raise the minimum wage.

“The money that they pay us under contractors is not enough for anybody to live on,” he says.

Turner’s predicament is not such an unfamiliar one for those making minimum wage—or no longer making minimum wage—across the country. As the shutdown drags on, Turner hopes Congress remembers those people who work for government contractors. But he can’t bet on it.

“All I can do is hope and pray that they come to some kind of conclusion and get this stuff done and over with,” Turner says. “But in the meantime, the only thing I can do is put myself out there and try to find another job. Hopefully, whatever happens will be something good and something positive will come out of it.”