Sunday marks day 30 of the partial shutdown of the federal government.
The shutdown is a result of an impasse between Congress and the White House.
President Trump is refusing to sign the budgets of several federal departments, unless Congress provides money for a border wall. And despite now two national addresses from the president, Democrats are refusing to do that.
The result? Nine federal departments have no budget, and are shut down. That means hundreds of thousands of government employees are working without pay, or outright furloughed.
Reaching day 30 has raised a frightening question for the group that's currently furloughed.
Some have noticed that federal law usually calls for layoffs to begin after 30 days of furlough. Those layoffs, called reductions in force, historically happen when funding is purposefully cut.
But here's the key, there's an exception in this law, specifically for shutdowns. Because with a shutdown, the money could return at any time, no reductions in force are required.
So we can verify, there will not be mandatory layoffs because the shutdown has reached day 30.
One thing that will happen now, as reported by the Federal News Network: another round of notices will go out to furloughed employees.
These will basically just remind those workers that they're still furloughed. The notices are required to go out every 30 days that the furloughs continue. They'll either go to workers' personal emails or they'll be physically mailed to their homes.
And if Congress and the president stay in this gridlock, they might be getting a third notice in late February.