The Trump administration is considering blocking furloughed federal workers from getting back pay for their forced time off during the government shutdown.

The plan is outlined in a draft White House memo first reported by Axios and confirmed to The New York Sun by an administration official.

A 2019 law was intended to ensure that furloughed workers automatically would be compensated for their salaries after any shutdowns, but the White House says the “Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019” is being misinterpreted.

The Office of Management and Budget memo states that the wording in the law specifically requires Congress to approve the appropriation of back pay. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers could be affected.

The issue could put pressure on Democrats who have refused to go along with Republican proposals to temporarily fund the government and end the shutdown. Democrats have said they would only approve funding to end the shutdown if it includes an extension of health insurance subsidies.

Federal employees overwhelmingly supported Vice President Kamala Harris in the election last year and the blocked pay could be seen as a way to punish them.

The administration is also looking into using the shutdown to permanently eliminate large numbers of government employees.

“We have the authority to make permanent change to the bureaucracy here in government,” the budget director, Russ Vought, told Larry Kudlow on Fox Business last week.

President Trump has claimed Democrats going along with the shutdown has expanded his ability to make cuts.

“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office last week.

The Trump administration already eliminated swaths of the federal government earlier in the year through DOGE cuts and hundreds of thousands of other employees took buyouts with their last day on the government payroll as of September 30.

Polling suggests that neither side is winning when it comes to public support, with Republicans blaming Democrats for shutting the government and Democrats saying they are fighting to protect affordable health care for Americans.