If the federal government shut down Friday or Saturday, it does not mean that everything stops.
Essential federal services, like military operations, go on as planned.
However, things not deemed to be vital can be halted until Congress provides for them, meaning that the federal employees who provide those services could be placed on furlough.
The largest impact in Virginia would be on the state’s roughly 180,000 federal employees. About 27 percent of those employees, or 50,000, work in Hampton Roads, according to the Virginia Employment Commission. Tens of thousands of others work for firms that depend on federal contracts.
