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Security officers at airports around the country were already expressing increasing anxiety about their financial plight.

“It is getting harder to come every day and know that you’re not getting paid, but it’s my job, and I knew when I started this job that this was potentially going to happen,” said a 37-year-old woman who is a screener at Los Angeles International Airport. “So I’m going to come in, but if there is any other reason that I have to call out, I’m not going to hesitate to do it.”

Like many other screeners interviewed for this article, she declined to be identified because she said she had been warned against talking to journalists.

“It’s difficult to budget things like food, or knowing which bills to pay, when you simply don’t know when you’ll have money again,” said a 29-year-old man who works for the T.S.A. at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.

He said that he had contacted his banks, mortgage company and other creditors but none of them had a program to help in his situation. The Department of Homeland Security distributed letters for its employees to show to landlords, explaining that they “are unlikely to be able to pay for their housing for the foreseeable future,” but they have been of little assistance, he said.

So he was resigned to having to run up the balances on his credit cards and pay interest on the debt, he said, adding that in the meantime, he was looking around the house for things that he could sell quickly on eBay.

At O’Hare, he said, “Our policies and screening procedures aren’t being done any less thorough, but it’s likely they may take longer the more officers we become short.”