Report: Federal workers increasingly using retirement savings during shutdown

Federal workers are increasingly resorting to taking money out of their retirement funds as the shutdown continues, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

Data from the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board shows a 34 percent increase in hardship withdrawals in the two and a half weeks after Christmas compared to the same period last year.

Most of those withdrawals are reportedly coming from the investment firm BlackRock, which manages four of the five Thrift savings plans.

{mosads}An estimated 800,000 federal workers have been furloughed or working without pay during the partial government shutdown that began Dec. 22.

President Trump’s demand for $5 billion for a border wall and Democrats offer of only $1.3 billion for border security measures has led to an impasse and the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

Federal workers missed their first full paycheck last Friday after receiving a slightly reduced one in late December.

That additional financial stress has lead workers to pull from sources they would not normally turn, according to Bloomberg.

A small, bipartisan group of House members introduced a bill Tuesday that would remove penalties for workers who draw from their retirement accounts. Normally there is a 10 percent fee on those withdrawals.