USDA says SNAP benefits won't be issued on Nov. 1

Employees at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services were among the layoffs issued Friday, a spokesperson for the agency said.

HHS employees across multiple divisions have received reduction-in-force notices as a direct consequence of the Democrat-led government shutdown," HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said.

Nixon blamed "bloated bureaucracy" by the Biden administration for "growing its budget by 38% and its workforce by 17%." The world was still dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic when Biden took office in 2021.

"All HHS employees receiving reduction-in-force notices were designated non-essential by their respective divisions. HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration's Make America Healthy Again agenda," Nixon added.

-ABC News' Cheyenne Haslett

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said in a social media post that the administration is making good on its threat of mass firings of the federal workforce amid the government shutdown.

"The RIFs have begun," Vought wrote on X on Friday.

A spokesperson from the Office of Management and Budget confirmed that the reductions in force have begun and added that they are "substantial." OMB has not immediately responded to further inquiries about details on the mass firings. 

It is not yet clear which agencies or federal workers have received the "Reduction in Force" notices.

-ABC News' Michelle Stoddart

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that President Donald Trump is "working on ways" to ensure the military troops get paid during the shutdown, but did not provide specifics.

"The executive branch, the president is working on ways that he may have as well to ensure that troops are paid. The Republican Party stands for paying the troops. The Democrats are the ones that are demonstrating over and over and over now eight times that you don't want troops to be paid," Johnson said at a news conference in the Capitol.

Johnson appeared frustrated as he was asked by ABC News' Jay O'Brien why he hasn't made separate legislation to ensure troops are paid.

"We did that. We passed the bill. We have voted eight times. Republicans have voted eight times to pay troops, to pay the civilian workforce, to pay TSA agents, border patrol, air traffic controllers and all the rest. We've done it," he said.

The House canceled votes for next Tuesday and the lower chamber has no immediate plans to return to Washington, D.C.

-ABC News' Lauren Peller and John Parkinson

After a seventh failed vote Thursday on a short-term funding bill to reopen the government, senators left town and don’t plan to return to D.C. until next Tuesday, even as the government remains shut down with no end in sight.

What does this mean? The government shutdown will last at least two weeks. The next chance to vote to reopen the government is Oct. 14. Members of the military are guaranteed to miss their paycheck on Oct. 15.

What’s next? The Senate has scheduled a vote for Tuesday night at 5:30 p.m. on the "clean" short-term funding bill to reopen the government, passed by the House GOP. This will be the eighth time the Senate will hold a vote on the measure.

-ABC News' Lauren Peller