Federal workers who say they are struggling due to the partial government shutdown have launched more than 1,500 crowdfunding campaigns since the shutdown began, a GoFundMe spokeswoman told CNN on Thursday.

GoFundMe spokeswoman Katherine Cichy told CNN that the crowdfunding campaigns have altogether raised more than $300,000 so far.

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Most have launched since early January, when workers affected by the shutdown began to miss paychecks, according to the news network.

A number of federal employees have set up campaigns in attempts to make ends meet as they seek to pay for rent, medical bills or even food.

The shutdown, which started on Dec. 22, is now well into its fourth week and is the longest shutdown in U.S. history. It has strained hundreds of thousands of federal workers who are either furloughed or working without pay.

Walter Shaub Walter Michael ShaubTrump breaks with precedent on second night of convention Democratic senators call for ethics review into Ivanka Trump's Goya tweet Chris Cuomo blasts Trump over photo with Goya products: 'In the middle of a pandemic, they're selling beans' MORE, the former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, told CNN that the GoFundMe pages could be murky legally. Federal law stipulates that government employees should not supplement their salaries with outside income, according to CNN.

"The primary law in question is a criminal law that prohibits payments in exchange for an employee's federal service," Shaub said.