Among thegovernment's suggestions to help make ends meet: offering mortgagelenders partial payments and even payments in kind—i.e., plumbingand carpentry work. (Photo: Shutterstock)

While some branches of the federal government are fully fundedduring the shutdown battle, others are not—and with some 420,000 government workers still on the job but withoutpay (including the U.S. Coast Guard, which falls under theDepartment of Homeland Security and not the Department of Defense),and another 380,000 furloughed, according to a CNN report, the situation isn't pretty for avery large number of people.

Despite the claim of Rep. Scott Perry, R-PA, that federalemployees would do just fine until more money comes in, somegovernment workers are among the nearly 80 percent of Americanworkers live paycheck to paycheck. And that means an awfullot of those federal workers are going to be in a very tight spotas soon as that next paycheck doesn't come in.

Related: Advance-pay apps help employees living paycheck topaycheck

But never fear: the government has some ideas on how they canmanage to get through. Reuters reports that the feds have offered advice onhow to keep the wolf—er, creditors—from the door until the moneystarts flowing again (assuming that it does). Among theirsuggestions are offering mortgage lenders partial payments and evenpayments in kind—i.e., plumbing and carpentry work.

New York magazine quotes one of the letter templates that theOffice of Personnel Management has mounted on its website to assistthose currently without income in approaching creditors forleniency. This particular letter advocates that creditors considerbarter in lieu of cash: “I will keep in touch with you to keep youinformed about my income status and I would like to discuss withyou the possibility of trading my services to perform maintenance(e.g. painting, carpentry work) in exchange for partial rentpayments.”

Navy Federal Credit Union is being more proactive, offering its eligible members azero-percent APR loan that will cover direct deposit pay up to a$6,000 limit.

According to Mother Jones, some of the dilemmas faced byout-of-work government employees and a few of their copingstrategies, one of which is to return Christmas presents. One womantweeted that she might have to terminate her husband's caregiver.Another is picking up extra shifts where possible, according to aHuffington Post report that also points outthat many government contractors won't be getting paidretroactively—or at all—for time missed during the shutdown. Andfor them the situation is considerably more dire.

Such employees as food workers and janitors and even securityservices and computer software developers are not federal employeesat all, but work for contractors. And most will not receive any payat all once the government reopens its doors and the money beginsto flow again; their pay for those missing days will simply notexist.

While President Trump has claimed that most furloughed workersare Democrats, according to Time magazine, he may be right by thetime the shutdown is over. Lots of federal and contract workers,says website Common Dreams, are tweeting back to the tweeter-in-chief that,contrary to his claim that workers are supporting the shutdownuntil funding is approved for the wall, they are not—and they blamehim for their loss of pay and resulting precarious financialsituation.

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