Wednesday marks Day 36 of the federal government shutdown — and sets a record for the longest in U.S. history.

There’s no immediate end in sight, as Congress and President Donald Trump fight over funding Medicaid and subsidizing the Affordable Care Act.

For the 327,000 Marylanders who work for the federal government, according to U.S. Census data, that means more days of uncertainty.

“I naively thought the shutdown would not last too long, but now I feel like I have no idea how long it will last and what the impacts will continue to be,” said one woman who has worked at the Baltimore County-based Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for more than a year. ”It feels like an unprecedented situation that we don’t really know how to deal with.”

The woman, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said that while she is working normally during the shutdown, “delays caused by the lapsed weeks of work have already caused problems that I know are impacting the public, whether or not they know it.”

Nationally, roughly 1.4 million civilian federal workers aren’t being paid, and some 730,000 of them — including air traffic controllers — are working regularly anyway. Another 670,000 are at home until the shutdown ends. It’s unclear how many Marylanders are in either category.

Many, including Sean Pumphrey, a federal worker who lives in Baltimore, are taking odd jobs to keep cash in their pockets.

Others, like one man who works at the Social Security Administration’s headquarters in Baltimore County and did not want to be named for fear of retribution, told The Banner they’re tired of being idle.

“It’s been surreal, not being able to go anywhere or make plans,” he said. “I’m out of to-do items around the house, and I’m sick of sitting around waiting.”

The past 35 days have been a blur of “spending time with friends, tackling projects around the house, going for walks, binge-watching movies, yelling at Republicans online, napping, being a lap for the cats,” he said.

The ongoing shutdown also affects Americans in all corners. Many national parks and sites, including Fort McHenry in Baltimore, are closed. In Washington, D.C., Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo are closed.

Millions of recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are in limbo as they follow the Trump administration’s back and forth about whether their November benefits will be funded.

Late Monday, Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, said Maryland would spend about $62 million to keep SNAP benefits flowing — though there could be delays getting them to people in need.

This is the 11th time since 1981 that Congress has let federal funding lapse for two days or more, according to the Associated Press. Only this shutdown and the previous one have lasted over a month.

In recent history, there was a 16-day shutdown in 2013 during Barack Obama’s presidency and a 35-day freeze that spanned December 2018 and January 2019 during Trump’s last presidency.

There was a 21-day shutdown in 1995 under former President Bill Clinton.

The Social Security employee said the Obama-era shutdown showed him the harsh reality of working for the federal government.

“Back in 2013, I had just bought my house and put all my savings into the down payment, plus furniture and other expenses,” he said. “I was flat broke when the shutdown happened. I promised myself then that I’d never let myself be in that position again.”

This time, he said, “I’m fortunate to be frugal enough and have the resources to manage pretty well.”

This shutdown is another layer of whiplash for federal workers, who have already had a challenging year.

Trump kicked off the first year of his second term with numerous executive orders that demanded an end to remote work for federal workers.

He also established the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), initially led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, which embedded in federal agencies, cutting staff, offices and budgets.

Deep divisions between political parties and views on the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare, are keeping the shutdown ongoing.

The largest federal employee union, the American Federation of Government Employees, has been urging Congress to reopen the government and then work on policy differences over health care.

“Congress must stop playing politics with the livelihoods of federal workers and the communities they serve, end this shutdown immediately, and stop holding workers hostage,” AFGE President Everett Kelley said in an Oct. 1 statement.

In a social media post Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Sarah Elfreth, a Democrat who represents swaths of Howard and Anne Arundel counties, said her district includes 45,000 civil servants. She said in a video that Democratic members of Congress are trying to do their jobs and blamed Republican leadership for the funding stalemate.

Trump blames Democrats in Congress, says he can fix health care insurance and claims the Democratic Party is using extortion tactics to get their way.

“The Republicans are voting almost unanimously to end it and the Democrats keep voting against ending it,” he said in an interview with 60 Minutes. “The Democrats always voted for an extension. All we’re saying — give us an extension. We’ll work it out. They’ve lost their way."