Typically people do not go to work while living on their emergency fund. That is why it doesn't sit well when we tell the government employees that they should be living off their hard-earned savings while they work for us for free. It's not an emergency, it's madness.

To some extent, people work for the government because of the stability. You are not going to wake up one morning to find that the United States Government is out of business, so an emergency fund seems less essential than if you were working at a startup with 3 employees.

With government work no longer being considered more stable or reliable than the private sector, the one advantage that the government has used to recruit workers and pay them less than average is gone. That means government work is going to go un-done, or they're going to have to start paying employees more to make up for the risk. That only hurts us taxpayers.

I agree about the ridiculousness of the cause of the temporary income loss. It's still an emergency for the individual/family and therefore an instance for which the emergency fund exists.

Preferably, actual emergencies, not manufactured ones. Property damage/maintenance, healthcare, travel to visit family in an emergency, money to cover expenses if evacuated due to a natural disaster, I can think of more. Certainly job loss fits into this but federal workers are not losing their jobs at this point; it's an untenable situation.

Depending on how big your company is, you might need already one month saving alone for any hickup on payment.

I'm not assuming that i will lose that money.

But yes in general if i have emergency money, its out of scope and it doesn't 'hurt' directly when i actuall have to lose it. Thats the point of it. But still when i lose it, i have to replace it later right?

Maybe a different emergency happened in early december that tanked their fund?

An emergency fund is for an actual emergency. Not a manufactured political crisis.