The last government shutdown was the longest in more than 40 years. Here are all the recent shutdowns in one chart.

  (CNN) -- If Congress is unable to meet a September 30 deadline to fund the federal government, a shutdown could bring much of Washington to a halt. The last government shutdown, from December 22, 2018 to January 25, 2019, lasted 35 days and was the longest in four decades.

While government shutdowns have become less common in recent decades — there have been six since 1990 — an increasingly partisan Washington has left Congress unable to resolve sticking points on spending for longer periods of time.

With Speaker Kevin McCarthy overseeing one of the narrowest and most factitious congressional majorities in decades, there’s no telling how long a government shutdown this year could last.

Here’s all the government shutdowns since the early 1980s, when agencies were instructed to stop normal operations during funding lapses.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.