Republicans are eying the end of the week as a pivotal pressure point in their campaign to persuade Democrats to end the federal shutdown.

President Trump said Tuesday, a full week into the shutdown, that his repeatedly threatened layoffs of nonessential federal workers would be announced in four or five days.

“It’ll be substantial, and a lot of those jobs will never come back,” Mr. Trump said. “You can have a lot closer to a balanced budget, actually.”

The president’s deadline for implementing layoffs is roughly the time Congress has to act to reopen the government so that active-duty military members don’t miss their next paycheck on Oct. 15.

Over the weekend, Mr. Trump told Navy members not to worry about delayed paychecks.

“I want you to know that despite the current Democrat-induced shutdown, we will get our service members every last penny,” he said at a Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia. “Do not worry about it. It’s all coming.”

Active-duty military personnel are paid on a bimonthly schedule.

“This gets very real,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican. “Checks to our troops will be held up Oct. 15 if [Democrats] don’t come in here tomorrow and vote to reopen the government. You have to get it resolved by Oct. 13, which is Monday, in order to process those checks.”

Monday is a federal holiday, Columbus Day, and the government would normally be closed.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, said civilian government employees, who are paid every two weeks, will see the “real consequences” of the shutdown this week. Their paychecks will be noticeably smaller because they include pay for only a few days before the shutdown began Oct. 1.

“Every day that the Democrats keep the government shut down is creating more and worse consequences for the American people,” Mr. Thune said.

In addition to the impact on federal workers, he cited the White House Council of Economic Advisers’ estimate that the shutdown could cost the U.S. economy $15 billion in gross domestic product each week it continues.

Democrats said they are worried about the shutdown’s impacts but Americans are concerned about rising health care costs. They are demanding a bipartisan negotiation as a condition for reopening the government, which Republicans are refusing.

“Right now, the only people getting paid in the U.S. government is the president and the members of Congress, which, again, the bulk of them are not even showing up to do their job,” said Sen. Andy Kim, New Jersey Democrat, referring to House Republicans keeping their chamber in recess outside Washington. “I think that’s offensive.”

The Constitution requires members of Congress to be paid, but Mr. Kim and other members in both parties have requested that their pay be withheld during the shutdown. Some lawmakers have said they would donate their paychecks.

Military service members and other federal employees are required to work during the shutdown. The Trump administration considers it essential to maintain the most critical government operations.

For the roughly 750,000 nonessential employees who are furloughed during the shutdown, according to Congressional Budget Office figures, the administration is considering permanent reductions in force.

The White House Office of Management and Budget also appears to be entertaining legal arguments that remaining furloughed employees should not be paid for the time they didn’t work.

A draft OMB memo argues that the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, which is supposed to guarantee furloughed workers back pay at the conclusion of any shutdown, has been misinterpreted. Specifically, the memo cites a line in the law that says back pay is “subject to the enactment of appropriations Acts ending the lapse.”

Mr. Trump signed the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act in 2019 during the last government shutdown.

“Each employee of the United States Government or of a District of Columbia public employer furloughed as a result of a covered lapse in appropriations shall be paid for the period of the lapse in appropriations, and each excepted employee who is required to perform work during a covered lapse in appropriations shall be paid for such work, at the employee’s standard rate of pay, at the earliest date possible after the lapse in appropriations ends, regardless of scheduled pay dates,” the law reads.

Before the law was enacted, Congress had to approve back pay for federal workers affected by shutdowns after lawmakers reopened the government. Though Congress always voted to provide the pay, there was never a guarantee, so it created uncertainty for federal workers.

The Washington Times confirmed that OMB created the memo questioning the intent of the law. Axios, which first reported on the memo, said the White House still believes non-furloughed government employees are automatically entitled to back pay.

It is unclear whether OMB will make the draft memo an official administration position.

When asked whether government workers would get back pay, Mr. Trump said it would depend “on who you’re talking about.”

“For the most part, we’re going to take care of our people,” he said. “There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”

Any move to question workers’ back pay would likely face legal challenges from government employee labor unions.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 820,000 federal workers, slammed the idea of withholding back pay as “an obvious misinterpretation of the law.”

“It is also inconsistent with the Trump administration’s own guidance from mere days ago, which clearly and correctly states that furloughed employees will receive retroactive pay for the time they were out of work as quickly as possible once the shutdown is over,” said AFGE President Everett Kelley.

Mr. Kelly was referring to guidance on the OMB website ahead of the shutdown, which stated: “Employees who were furloughed as result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods.”

Mr. Johnson and Mr. Thune said they had not seen the OMB memo, but the questions about the law should add to the reasons Senate Democrats need to vote to end the shutdown.

“If that is true, that should turn up the urgency and the necessity of the Democrats to do the right thing here,” Mr. Johnson said.

“I hope the furloughed workers receive back pay,” he said, adding that he and the president believe most federal workers “serve valiantly, and they work hard.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, said the OMB memo is part of a broader pattern of Mr. Trump “torturing” federal employees with firings and threats since he returned to office.”

“The law is clear: Every single furloughed federal employee is entitled to back pay,” Mr. Jeffries said. “We will make sure that law is followed.”

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, called the OMB memo a “baseless attempt to try and scare & intimidate workers by an administration run by crooks and cowards.”

The threats of layoffs and questions about paying back furloughed workers are self-inflicted decisions not required by law, but the White House is taking steps to limit the pain of the shutdown.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on social media that Mr. Trump and his aides “identified a creative solution” to keep the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children funded.

She said the administration will transfer resources from Section 232 tariff revenue to keep WIC afloat.

The WIC program provides free, healthy food, nutrition education and breastfeeding support for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding or recent mothers and children younger than 5.

“The Trump White House will not allow impoverished mothers and their babies to go hungry because of the Democrats’ political games,” Ms. Leavitt said.

• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.

• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.