Department of Defense no relation United States government shutdown
Furloughs in 2013
The first federal government furloughs of 2013 went into effect as a result of budget sequestration (or sequester) – the automatic spending cuts in particular categories of federal outlays.  (This procedure was first used in the Gramm–Rudman–Hollings Balanced Budget Act of 1985.) The sequesters were designed to take place if the federal deficit exceeded a set of fixed deficit targets. In 2013 specifically, sequestration refers to a section of the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) that was initially set to begin on January 1, 2013, as an austerity fiscal policy. These cuts were postponed by two months by the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 until March 1, when this law went into effect.  At that time, most federal departments and agencies began furloughing their employees in order to meet their spending cut targets. For the Department of Defense, almost all of the civilian workforce as well as most full-time, dual-status military technicians of the National Guard and the Reserves were affected. The initial furlough requirement was 176 working hours per affected employee, which was later cut to 88 hours.  Due to cost-cutting measures in other areas, this furlough was further reduced to a total of 48 working hours per DoD civilian and full-time Reserve Component member.
Later, on October 1, 2013, at 12:01 am EDT, Congress' inability to agree on a spending bill led to a government shutdown. During the shutdown, most "non-essential" government employees were furloughed.  This resulted in approximately 800,000 government workers being put on a leave beginning October 1. Congress later unanimously voted to restore pay to the furloughed workers.
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