The US government shutdown continues, leaving 800,000 federal employees forced to take a leave of absence or working without pay. And the costs are piling up.

The partial shutdown is harming the economy. CNBC reports that an anonymous official from the Trump administration said around 0.1 percentage points are subtracted from economic growth for each week of the shutdown.

The impasse is the result of Donald Trump’s demand for $5.7bn in taxpayer money to go towards building a wall on the southern border with Mexico. That has been rejected by Democrats.

A wall would have limited effects at best; there were 300,000 apprehensions at the southern border in 2017. That same year, twice as many people entered the US legally by air or sea and overstayed their visas.

This week, the financial analysis firm S&P estimated that the shutdown, which began on 22 December, had cost the US economy $3.6bn by January 11. By that estimate, it suggests the shutdown has cost $1.2bn per week – so by the 25th day that had risen to $4.3bn, increasing by about $170m per day.

If the impasse continues for another week, the shutdown would have cost about the same as Trump has demanded for the wall.

This is a column that illustrates numbers from the news each week. Have feedback or ideas for future columns? Write to me: mona.chalabi@theguardian.com