How the 2019 shutdown stacks up on unemployment claims

Unemployment claims by federal workers are rare and tend to average around 1,000 or less per week. But 35,873 federal workers filed jobless claims in the first 2 weeks of 2019, more than 12 times the number who typically apply during that timeframe.

The big picture: The 2013 government shutdown affected more government agencies than its 2019 counterpart. That year about 850,000 federal employees did not work for at least part of the 16-day shutdown, and more than 1 million employees did not receive a paycheck, the Office of Management and Budget found.

Go deeper: U.S. jobless claims dropped to lowest in 50 years