White House: Shutdown cost billions in productivity

Last month's partial federal government shutdown cost taxpayers as much $6 billion in lost productivity and resulted in federal workers missing a cumulative 6.6 million workdays, according to a report released Thursday by the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The report, released three weeks after the resolution of the impasse, details the economic consequences of shuttering the government for 16 days and highlights some of the residual impact the shutdown caused.

By comparison, the budget office estimated in 1996 that the two shutdowns in late 1995 and early 1996, which lasted 26 days total, cost the government $1.4 billion, or roughly $2.1 billion in today's dollars.

"One thing that did come out of the shutdown is a greater appreciation for a number of things that the government did," OMB Director Sylvia Matthews Burwell said.

Among the findings:

•The shutdown delayed almost $4 billion in tax refunds and will delay the start of the 2014 tax filing season by up to two weeks.

•Hundreds of patients were prevented from enrolling in National Institutes of Health clinical trials.

•Communities lost $500 million in spending in their communities as a result of shuttered National Parks.

Fourth-quarter GDP growth is expected to be 0.6% lower than it could have been had the shutdown and debt ceiling battles of last month not taken place, according to the White House Council of Economic Advisers.