Washington DC, 25 Dec 2018 - With National Park Service personnel on furlough a man picks up trash and stacks it near a trash can on the National Mall

Political leaders have said they will resume talks aimed at ending the partial government shutdown that started Saturday but no clear path toward that goal is in sight.

As commonly happens when a shutdown passes several days in length, the situation has become more a test of will than a matter of policy—in this case, the policy question is the amount and allowable uses of funding for border security. That’s the same issue that caused two brief shutdowns earlier this year that were ended by commitments to revisit the issue later, but now later has arrived with the last days of the current Congress under Republican control.

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Already there are expectations that the lapse could continue at least through the start of the new Congress January 3. Leaders of the incoming House Democratic majority plan to quickly pass legislation to temporarily extend funding for agencies where spending authority has lapsed, possibly through the same February 8 date that had been proposed before the two sides hit loggerheads, triggering the partial shutdown. However, such a measure almost certainly would not authorize spending for a border wall, leaving the sides even farther apart.

In terms of both spending and employment, about three-fourths of the government is unaffected because it has full-year funding already in place—although that leaves nine Cabinet departments and scores of smaller agencies without funding. An estimate produced by the Senate shows 800,000 federal employees affected, of whom slightly less than half, 380,000, are on unpaid furlough while the rest are to continue working, although unpaid for the meantime.

However, the actual impact has been difficult to judge since the partial shutdown started on a weekend, Monday was an excused day off for most employees, and Tuesday was the Christmas Day holiday. That also complicated the process of notifying employees of their status.

Meanwhile, the administration has told agencies to try to find ways to keep offices open by using unspent prior funds and other sources—meaning that some employees whose agency “contingency plans” call for them to be furloughed may still be in working status.

Another effect of the standoff has been continued indecision on a federal employee pay raise for 2019. One of the unresolved spending bills that has been set aside is the financial services-general government bill, which has been in a House-Senate conference for months.

The Senate has advocated paying an average 1.9 percent raise while the House first indicated it supported a freeze as advocated by the White House, then later signaled it was open to paying a raise. As both chambers passed bills attempting to prevent the partial shutdown, though, neither provided for a raise.

At this point, the issue most likely will be left to the new Congress where the House, under Democratic control, will be more open to paying a raise than under its current leadership. The Senate had backed a raise on a strong bipartisan vote and supporters there have said they will make it a priority when the new Congress convenes.

Whether a raise could be finalized before the traditional effective date of a raise—the first full pay period of a year, in this case starting January 6—is uncertain. Most likely, it would have to be passed not as a standalone bill but rather attached to some other measure—potentially to whatever is enacted to end the shutdown but also potentially not until some later measure.