It’s hard to go to work when you know you’re not getting paid.

That’s how Lester Harris feels. The Oakland native, who’s worked for the Transportation Security Administration at Oakland International Airport for 14 years, didn’t get paid last week because of the federal government shutdown.

Still, he’s been expected to report for his shifts screening travelers.

“We’re still there, which is good for the traveling American public, but it’s not good for us,” he said. “I’m spending money to get to work ... burning through supplies that you no longer have a way of replenishing.”

Harris, 35, isn’t the only federal employee in his family feeling his pockets squeezed by the shutdown.

He rents a room from his uncle, whose wife works for the IRS. Harris said his father and his wife, as well as his mother and her husband, also work for the federal government. So does one of his brothers. His fiancee is a TSA agent, like him.

Harris shared his story Saturday morning at Red Bay Coffee in East Oakland, when he met with Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland. She sat down with Harris and three other constituents for a nearly hour-long discussion about how the shutdown is affecting them.

Harris said he has TSA friends who can’t afford to make the 40-mile drive from Pittsburg to the airport.

“Now you don’t have money to fill up your car two or three times a week so you have to stay home,” said Harris, who is looking for another job.

He told me he applied for work at Safeway before driving to meet Lee. He can’t borrow money from family, because they’re in the same predicament.

Harris was joined by Chad Davis-Montgomery, Jeanne Henderson and Bethany Dreyfus. They talked about rents and mortgages, car loans, credit scores and depleted savings accounts while Lee took notes. According to the latest Federal Reserve report on the economic well-being of Americans, about 4 in 10 adults don’t have enough money saved to withstand a $400 emergency expense.

This ridiculous shutdown has created an emergency for hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Davis-Montgomery, 37, is administrative officer for the San Francisco district of the Food and Drug Administration. He provides support to consumer safety officers who perform food, drug and medical device inspections from Hawaii to Nevada.

Normal preventive inspections aren’t happening during the shutdown.

“And that’s a huge safety net for our food and drug supply in our country,” Davis-Montgomery said.

“It’s not acceptable for us not to be doing the work that needs to be done,” said Dreyfus, an Environmental Protection Agency employee and local president of the American Federation of Government Employees union.

We should all be concerned. Sure, it’s safe to eat romaine lettuce again, but what about the inspections to prevent another E. coli outbreak? If this shutdown was really about public safety, people like Davis-Montgomery would be working.

“These services are critical, and people don’t relate what you do to their daily lives,” Lee told the group. “It is so important.”

Public safety is being held hostage by a law-and-order president who believes he’s above the law. He incites fear by claiming there’s an illegal immigration crisis at our southern borders but, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, illegal border crossings have been declining for nearly two decades.

The president’s demand for $5.7 billion in wall funding is the ransom he wants taxpayers to pay to open the government and stroke his deal-making ego. Just imagine how much greater this country would be if that money were spent on housing or education.

Davis-Montgomery missed his first paycheck Friday. Now he’s concerned how he and his husband will continue to pay for their one-bedroom apartment in Jack London Square. Rent is more than $3,000, and the landlord will want the money no matter how long the shutdown persists.

Henderson, who kept the mood light with her quips, suggested that top government officials, including the president, should also not be paid. When Lee told her the president chooses not to collect a paycheck, Henderson replied, “Well, if he’d like he can send me his golden sink, and I’ll cash that.”

The president, who walked away from a bipartisan deal in December that would have provided $1.6 billion for his wall efforts, has said the shutdown could last for months.

“That’s a dictator comment,” Henderson said.

“Well, he’s supposed to be a president, but when you look at everything that he has done, this democracy is pretty fragile right now,” Lee responded. “It’s a very defining moment for this country.”

Harris said the president and his administration are out of touch with everyday citizens, people like him who still go to work, even though they don’t know when they’ll get their next paycheck.

“It really feels like a betrayal that I still come in, and I’m doing my best every day, but you don’t seem to actually care that I’m hurting, that I’m in a tough spot,” he said.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays and Thursdays. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr