[pseudo0]

> There's also alllll the times that military appropriations have been a political football. A lot of DoD folks have had to report to work unpaid multiple times over the past couple years. Many of them later got backpay when a budget was passed, but not all.

GEFTA (signed into law in 2019) guarantees retroactive pay for furloughs due to lapses in appropriations. Before that, anyone exempted who still had to show up was guaranteed pay, and Congress would virtually always still backpay the people who were furloughed. It wasn't legally guaranteed, but I can't think of any cases in the last 10-20 years where retroactive pay didn't happen.

It's still pretty disruptive though, and it definitely sucks for contractors if they get sent home, as they don't get retroactive pay.