Donald Trump earned yet another presidential superlative last week when his border-wall shutdown entered its 22nd day, thereby becoming the longest funding lapse in U.S. history. For the first time since the shutdown began, an estimated 800,000 federal employees did not receive their regular paychecks, and Trump's vow to keep the government closed for "months or even years" unless Democrats agree to make taxpayers pay for his wall does not bode well for those employees' odds of receiving their next paychecks in a timely manner, either.

Mortgages and student-loan payments and utility bills are not tolled by dysfunction in Washington. The president, however, addressed the plight of these middle-class civil servants by confidently predicting that they will "make adjustments." He did not elaborate.

Trump is not the only Republican politician whose comments betray a cheerful disinterest in what life might be like in America for anyone who is not rich. When asked about the fact that his party forced TSA and Border Patrol agents to work without pay over the holidays, House Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows assured The Washington Post that random, periodic interruptions in compensation are simply one of the less pleasant parts of accepting federal employment.

“It’s actually part of what you do when you sign up for any public service position," Meadows said. "And it’s not lost on me in terms of, you know, the potential hardship. At the same time, they know they would be required to work and even in preparation for a potential shutdown those groups within the agencies have been instructed to show up.”

Meadows courageously volunteered to forgo his congressional salary for as long as this thing persists, but it might not matter much to him anyway. As of 2015, his net worth was estimated to be as high as $6.9 million.

Before the shutdown began, Pennsylvania congressman Scott Perry pooh-poohed the notion that it could have any measurable impact on government workers, who on average make about one-third less than their equally qualified counterparts in the private sector. "Who's living that they're not going to make it to the next paycheck?" he asked, apparently rhetorically, and apparently unaware that the actual answer to his question is 78 percent of all full-time employees in the United States. Perry, as of 2014, was worth close to $900,000; the median household net worth, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is about $80,000.