Around 800,000 federal workers of the United States are about to miss their second paycheques. Many of them have been turning to charities and donations to survive.

Low-income Americans may be evicted without the government subsidising their rent; and poor school children who receive free, government-sponsored lunches, will soon have to go without.

Even the FBI is unable to pay its sources to maintain counterterrorism operations.

Al Jazeera's Heidi Zhou-Castro reports from Washington.