Democratic and Republican congressional leaders have held a meeting at the White House with United States President Donald Trump in a late effort to avoid a government shutdown, but left saying that they still had large differences in their positions.

The meeting with congressional leaders on Monday afternoon came as the US government is facing a partial shutdown from one minute past midnight (04:01 GMT) on Wednesday unless lawmakers can agree on a spending bill.

Vice President JD Vance said he thought the US government would shut down due to the lack of agreement between Republicans and Democrats.

“I think we’re headed to a shutdown because the Democrats won’t do the right thing. I hope they change their mind, but we’re going to see,” Vance told reporters outside of the White House.

“There are still large differences between us,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said as he left the White House. Schumer added that Democratic leaders had laid out their demands to extend healthcare benefits.

Democrats in the US Senate this month rejected a Republican-drafted stopgap spending bill to keep the government running until November 21. They have argued that any spending bill should include provisions to expand healthcare coverage, including a reversal of cuts to Medicaid that were included in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Republicans argued that healthcare-related provisions should be addressed separately as part of negotiations for a comprehensive spending package.

Democrats exploring options

While Republicans hold 53 seats in the 100-member Senate, at least 60 lawmakers must approve an end to debate so the upper chamber can proceed to a vote, which means Democrats could block a vote on legislation they do not approve of.

Senate Democrats are discussing a range of alternatives to a government shutdown, including a seven- to 10-day funding bill, along with other possible measures that could run concurrently, two Senate Democratic sources told the Reuters news agency on Monday.

The sources, who asked not to be identified, said the plans, not yet approved by Democrats in Congress, would be aimed at averting government closures if no deal between Democrats and Republicans is in hand by late on Tuesday.

In interviews on Sunday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican, and Schumer traded blame for the impasse.

“The ball is in their court,” Thune told NBC News’s Meet the Press. “There is a bill sitting at the desk in the Senate right now. We could pick it up today and pass it.”

Speaking on the same programme, Schumer described the meeting with Trump and his Republican counterparts as “only a first step” to resolving the issue.

“We need a serious negotiation,” Schumer said.

“Now, if the president at this meeting is going to rant and just yell at Democrats and talk about all his alleged grievances and say this, that and the other thing, we won’t get anything done. But my hope is it’ll be a serious negotiation.”

The White House meeting comes after Trump last week called off a meeting with Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, citing what he described as “unserious and ridiculous demands” by Democrats.

If Democrats and Republicans fail to pass a spending bill by the deadline, federal government employees will not receive pay during the shutdown period – although they will be eligible for backpay – and those who are not considered essential will be furloughed.

There have been 14 government shutdowns since 1980, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Most of those lasted only a few days. The longest shutdown in US history, which took place in late 2018 and early 2019 during Trump’s first term, lasted 34 days.

Concerns over employment report

The Department of Labor said on Monday that its statistics agency would suspend economic data releases, including the closely watched monthly employment report for September, in the event of a partial government shutdown.

It was not clear whether the weekly jobless claims report would continue to be published. The data is collected by states, which run the unemployment insurance programmes, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) does the seasonal adjustment.

Possible delays in publishing the employment report would come at a time when concerns are growing over the quality of government-produced economic data, long viewed as the gold standard.

The BLS warned that “a reduction in quality of data collected might impact the quality of future estimates produced”.

The BLS has suffered years of underfunding under both Republican and Democratic administrations. That situation has been worsened by mass firings, voluntary resignations, early retirements and hiring freezes, which are part of an unprecedented campaign by the Trump administration to drastically reduce the size of government.

Response rates for the employment report have declined, and the agency has suspended data collection for portions of the consumer price index (CPI) in some areas across the country.

The nomination of Heritage Foundation economist EJ Antoni, a critic of the BLS, to head the statistics agency is also adding another layer of worry over data quality.

Economists across political ideologies have described Antoni as unqualified for the position.

Should September’s CPI report be delayed, that could leave the Social Security Administration unable to make its annual cost-of-living adjustment announcement, which retirees depend on to plan their budgets.