On Wednesday night, President Donald Trump put an end to a historic 43-day government shutdown by signing a funding bill. This shutdown had caused significant financial strain on federal employees who missed paychecks, disrupted travel plans for many airline passengers, and led to increased demand at food banks.

The bill was signed shortly after the House passed it with a predominantly partisan vote of 222-209. Previously, the Senate had already approved the measure on Monday.

This shutdown highlighted the deep partisan rifts in Washington, with President Trump taking extraordinary steps—such as canceling projects and attempting to dismiss federal workers—to challenge Democrats into conceding to his demands.

Democrats aimed to extend an expiring tax credit that reduces healthcare costs for plans purchased through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. They opposed a temporary spending bill that neglected this priority. Meanwhile, Republicans insisted that the tax credit issue was a separate matter to be addressed later.

Here’s what you need to know now:

Federal workers deeply felt the impacts of the shutdown

The shutdown created a cascade of troubles for many Americans. Throughout the shutdown, at least 670,000 federal employees were furloughed, while about 730,000 others were working without pay, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

The plight of the federal workers was among several pressure points, along with flight disruptions and cuts to food aid, that in the end ratcheted up the pressure on lawmakers to come to an agreement to fund the government.

Throughout the six-week shutdown, officials in President Trump’s administration repeatedly used the federal workers as leverage to try to push Democrats to relent on their health care demands. The Republican president signaled that workers going unpaid wouldn’t get back pay. He threatened and then followed through on firings in a federal workforce already reeling from layoffs earlier this year. A court then blocked the shutdown firings, adding to the uncertainty.

Federal workers question whether the longest government shutdown was worth their sacrifice

Jessica Sweet spent the federal government shutdown cutting back. To make ends meet, the Social Security claims specialist drank only one coffee a day, skipped meals, cut down on groceries and deferred paying some household bills. She racked up spending on her credit card buying gas to get to work.

With the longest shutdown ever coming to a close, Sweet and hundreds of thousands of other federal workers who missed paychecks will soon get some relief. But many are left feeling that their livelihoods served as political pawns in the fight between recalcitrant lawmakers in Washington and are asking themselves whether the battle was worth their sacrifices.

“It’s very frustrating to go through something like this,” said Sweet, who is a union steward of AFGE Local 3343 in New York. “It shakes the foundation of trust that we all place in our agencies and in the federal government to do the right thing.”

▶ Read more about how federal workers felt about the shutdown

OPM: Get back to it, federal workers

The Office of Personnel Management posted on X that federal workers are expected to be back to the grind on Thursday, with Trump signing a measure ending the record 43-day shutdown.

“Federal agencies in the Washington, DC area are open. Employees are expected to begin the workday on time. Normal operating procedures are in effect,” the OPM posting says.