Absenteeism has increased among them, to the point where queues have lengthened at American airports and it is not uncommon to have to wait several hours to reach the boarding area.
Billionaire Elon Musk proposed on Saturday, March 21 to pay the salaries of security checkpoint agents at American airports who, considered essential personnel, have been working without pay due to a partial budget paralysis since mid-February. “I would like to offer to pay the salaries of (Transportation Security Administration) TSA employees during the budget impasse that negatively impacts the lives of so many Americans at airports across the country,” said Elon Musk on his network X.
Since February 14, funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – which includes security checkpoints at airports – has been frozen due to a deep dispute between Democrats and Republicans in Congress over immigration enforcement practices (ICE). Because of this partial “shutdown,” thousands of federal DHS employees have been furloughed, while thousands of others in essential functions continue to work. In both cases, salaries will not be paid until lawmakers agree on a budget for DHS, which ICE depends on. TSA employees – approximately 50,000 people – have not been fully paid since March 13.
Airport Queues
According to various estimates, the average annual salary of these agents is between $50,000 and $60,000, totaling between $2.5 and $3 billion in budget for a whole year. Due to this situation, absenteeism has increased in their ranks – some working elsewhere while waiting for lawmakers to agree – while others have resigned. As a result, queues at security checkpoints have lengthened and it is not uncommon to now have to wait several hours at American airports to pass through this process and reach the boarding area.
Elon Musk is the richest person on the planet, with a fortune estimated by the latest Forbes annual ranking – published on March 10 – at $839 billion, up from $342 billion the previous year. “My ‘net worth’ is almost entirely due to the shares held in Tesla and SpaceX,” Elon Musk posted on X in mid-February, claiming to have “less than 0.1% of that in liquidity.”
