The Government Shutdown Is Affecting Older Americans in Big Ways

The lapse in federal funding and services is being felt across the country

Molly Snow, Emily Paulin and Deirdre van Dyk,

AARP

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Published October 20, 2025

different people impacted by the shutdown

Clockwise from center: Getty Images; Courtesy Elise Riley and John Simson; Sara Stathas; Courtesy Rolando Chang Barrero; Sara Stathas

A recently retired federal worker in Florida is postponing plans because she’s not sure when her pension will arrive. A Wisconsin grocer was forced to stop accepting food aid, though he’s letting some older regulars use IOUs. A 79-year-old who lives on an island near Seattle is braving the trip to the mainland after Medicare’s telehealth benefit lapsed.

The ripple effect of a federal government shutdown that has dragged on for weeks is being felt across the country, reaching into the everyday lives of older Americans. Stalled government services and scores of federal workers being furloughed means canceled plans and a lot of uncertainty.

The shutdown began Oct. 1, when Congress missed the deadline to pass a funding bill. Now older adults are starting to see that a government not operating at full capacity poses risks to health care, benefits, travel and financial security. Social Security and Medicare payments, however, are still going out as usual.

Here’s how older Americans are beginning to feel the effects.

Carol Sharpe (right), must ride a ferry to the Washington mainland to receive her medical care.

AARP (David Weese Jr/Getty Images, Courtesy Carol Sharpe)

Telehealth lapses along with government funding

Carol Sharpe, 79, lives on a remote island in the Puget Sound, just north of Seattle. Surrounded by peaceful hills and pristine beaches, the retired paramedic is miles away from the bustle of urban life. She’s also miles away from the doctors who treat her asthma.

“It’s at least an hour-and-a-half ride,” says Sharpe, of her journey to her allergist. “Sometimes it’s a ferry ride. Sometimes we take the one and only bridge off the island, which takes a good two hours or more if it’s congested.”

For years, Sharpe has been able to avoid that long trek for most of her appointments and meet with her doctor virtually instead, thanks to ongoing pandemic-era Medicare waivers that cover telehealth appointments. Now, due to the shutdown, she’ll have to make her visit in person.

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Introduced in March 2020 to help keep older adults at home and away from COVID-19, the Medicare waivers opened a much wider range of telehealth services to enrollees, including routine checkups and prescription refills. The virtual appointments proved widely popular, so the government allowed the coverage to continue through a series of extensions.

But the latest extension expired on Sept. 30. Congress failed to reach an agreement to renew it, and the government shut down, so the benefit abruptly lapsed for many older Americans. AARP is urging Congress to make the pandemic-era Medicare telehealth changes permanent.

Sharpe’s next telehealth appointment with her allergist was slated for November, but when she called the office to check whether it would still be covered by her Medicare insurance, she was told it would not be, unless she attended in person, she says. The out-of-pocket cost to keep it virtual would be roughly $145.

Sharpe estimated that the cost of gasoline, a ferry ticket and other travel expenses to get to an in-person appointment would be less than $145, so she plans to make the trek in November.

She is thankful she can still drive, but “it’s traumatizing for someone who lives rurally, who’s not used to the traffic, to get on a big highway and travel into the city, into that milieu, for a doctor’s appointment,” she says. “It’s not something you take lightly.”

Royal Palmer, the owner of Driftless Market & Deli in Platteville, Wisconson, has been unable to accept SNAP benefits since the government shut down.

Sara Stathas

Grocery store can’t certify SNAP benefits

Royal Palmer’s Driftless Market & Deli in the college town of Platteville, Wisconsin, serves older local shoppers on fixed incomes and those who rely on food aid to afford nutritious meals.

It’s a point of pride for Palmer and his family, who run the store, to serve the diverse needs of the community. But lately, because of the government shutdown, that has been a challenge.

Palmer, 39, has been unable to renew his store’s retailer license with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which allows the market to accept benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Calls to the service hotline are being met with an automated voicemail saying no new applications are being processed or updated until the government reopens. The USDA says in its shutdown guidance that most federal workers who cover food and nutrition services are furloughed until a budget deal is reached.

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Because he can’t accept federal food assistance funds right now, “I’ve allowed my regulars to open up lines of credit or a tab,” Palmer says. “If they’re on SNAP benefits, my thought is they’re in a financial situation where they qualify for that, and I don’t want to be a burden by not being able to take it.”

SNAP supports more than 11 million adults age 50-plus.

Though some generous community members have offered to pay customers’ tabs after hearing the market’s plight, “it’s just not a sustainable thing,” Palmer says. SNAP payments account for roughly a third of the market’s transactions.

Marjorie Bierbrauer, 82, holds an insulated bag containing lunch

Regular Driftless Market customer, Marjorie Bierbrauer, 82, says she relies on the store near her home for her regular groceries.

Sara Stathas

If the lapse continues, Palmer says he may have to set limits on the number of tabs he can take on. Already, he estimates it’s up to a few thousand dollars’ worth of credit.

Even once the government reopens, Palmer is concerned about how quickly pending applications will be processed, especially if there are further staff reductions at the USDA, which oversees the SNAP program.

A prolonged shutdown and financial stressors could hamper his store’s ability to support the local community, Palmer says, especially older customers who depend on the market for its healthy offerings and convenient location.

Marjorie Bierbrauer, 80, is one of those customers. She comes to the shop three times a week, almost without fail. As a vegetarian, she said it’s really the only store nearby that caters to her diet.

“I don’t know what I’d do without them,” she says.

Carmen Pabón, 55, recently retired from a job at the FAA, but doesn't know when her pension will start arriving.

Zack Wittman

Worries about federal pension delays

Carmen Pabón retired Oct. 1 from the Federal Aviation Administration after more than 20 years of federal service.

Throughout her career, Pabón, 55, also cared full-time for her father, who has dementia. In retirement, she was looking forward to training to become a real estate agent, getting certified as a financial services adviser and planning more visits to her granddaughter.

But the shutdown has put a damper on “everything,” the Davenport, Florida, resident says.

Pabón expects to receive about $1,200 a month from her federal pension, but with uncertainty about where her application is in the process, she’s worried the payments will be delayed. At some agencies, federal human resources (HR) and payroll staff may be furloughed, which can slow the processing of new retirement applications and make it difficult for recently retired federal employees to get a status update on their cases.

Pabón has deferred enrolling in classes because of the fees. She may seek hardship loans to cover her mortgage and daily expenses if the shutdown drags on.

“It’s just scary right now,” Pabón says. “I’m scrambling to find work almost anywhere just to pay bills.”

There’s hope for those whose applications made it to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) by Oct. 1. Staff there continue working during the shutdown, but there’s one main HR shop serving the entire federal workforce — nearly 2 million people — and historically, it has been overwhelmed by high caseloads and staffing shortages.

Dan Johnston, 66, is also wondering how long it will take for his pension check to clear after devoting more than two decades to helping citizens with their taxes at the Internal Revenue Service.

The North Dakota resident says he’s in limbo, not knowing whether to expect delays due to the shutdown and an influx of employee separations from the government. To make sure he’s financially covered, he made a big move.

“I took a chunk of money out of the 401(k) — most of it, actually — so that I could pay off my credit cards and cover the shortfall in my income,” he says.

When this year's Walk to Defeat ALS was cancelled due to the government shutdown, Elise Riley and husband John Simson held an unofficial walk in their neighborhood.

Courtesy Elise Riley and John Simson

Community events canceled

Last year, Dr. Elise Riley, 74, attended the ALS Association’s annual Walk to Defeat ALS for the first time. It was her way of publicly acknowledging that she has the progressive neurodegenerative disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“It was my coming-out party,” says Riley, a former medical director of four Maryland health clinics who lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

This year she had planned to return for the annual fundraising event for ALS research and awareness, held at the Washington Monument on the National Mall. But the government shutdown closed all events on monument grounds, and the walk was canceled.

Riley learned on a Thursday that the shutdown postponed the event, but she had friends and family arriving from out of town for support the next day. So she and her husband did some quick thinking and created an unofficial ALS walk in their neighborhood. More than 80 people, including neighbors, joined in.

But she knows that many will miss the connection and festive atmosphere of the official walk.

“There’s something very special when you're down on the mall, and you know you’re on the monument grounds, and … you’re there with other people with ALS, which is important,” Riley says.

The ALS Association plans to announce an alternate venue and time for the official walk soon.

Rolando Chang Barrero noticed a lack of staffing at Yosemite National Park.

Courtesy Rolando Chang Barrero

Braving national parks with limited staff

These days, cross-country RVer Rolando Chang Barrero, 63, and his four-legged sidekick, Bella, are rarely in one place for long.

That is, of course, unless the retired Florida art gallerist is stuck in traffic for two hours on the way out of Yosemite National Park. That was his recent experience after the shutdown.

Many national parks remain partially open, and visitors are still coming. But staff are stretched thin, and Barrero is worried about a lack of traffic management and enforcement around parking on roadsides and speeding in the parks. Park social media is not being updated with timely information about road closures and conditions, and emergency services could be slower to respond in certain areas.

“There’s nobody there to guide you,” he says.

As a result, Barrero says he’s spending less time than he’d planned in some parks and not taking any risks, especially as an older solo traveler.

“This country is beautiful,” he wrote on his travel page documenting his journey. “And I’ll continue to seek out that beauty wherever I can. But today, I do so with a little more caution — and a little less faith in the systems that were supposed to be there for all of us.”

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Molly Snow is a writer for AARP covering advocacy issues and state news. She also writes AARP's Today's Tips podcast. She previously worked at other news outlets, including Federal Times, McClatchy and Gannett.

Emily Paulin is an editor at aarp.org who covers nursing homes, health care, and federal and state policy. Her work has also appeared in Broadsheet, an Australian lifestyle publication.

Deirdre van Dyk is an AARP associate editor covering Social Security, caregiving, technology and fraud. She previously worked at USA Today and Time, where she covered business, government, sustainability and innovation.