US spent $2bn on furloughed workers The US government spent $2bn on wages of federal workers who were on leave during last month's shutdown, according to a new report by the White House budget office that sought to highlight the costs of last month's fiscal stand-off. At its peak, the US placed as many as 850,000 workers per day on furlough during the shutdown, which lasted for 16 days. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the White House budget director, said their "lost productivity" was one of the main costs incurred by the federal government. Although the employees were on unpaid leave at the time, they were paid retroactively under the terms of the deal to end the shutdown. Ms Burwell said other costs to the government included uncollected fees at national parks worth $450,000 per day, dramatically reduced tax collection depending on enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service, and additional interest on payments that were late due to the shutdown. Government agencies also incurred expenses to prepare for the shutdown, and reboot their programmes once they reopened on October 17. For instance, the report cited moves by the Energy department to place nuclear weapons labs into "safe standby condition" and then direct more resources to "restoring normal operations" later in the month. Economists have estimated that the shutdown and close brush with default last month could shave between 0.2 per cent and 0.6 per cent off US gross domestic product growth in the fourth quarter. Funding for the government expires again on January 15, threatening a new shutdown early next year. A budget conference has been set up in Congress to come up with a deal to renew funding until the end of the fiscal year in September 2014, but it is far from assured that they will reach an agreement. "The most important way to avoid a shutdown is to pass a budget," Ms Burwell told reporters on Thursday. It's one of the primary functions that on an annual basis occurs in the US Congress. That is the way to prevent something as harmful as this from happening again. With public opinion polls generally showing Americans more likely to blame Republicans than Democrats or Mr Obama for the fiscal stand-off, the White House has been keen to highlight the toll inflicted by the brinkmanship on the economy.