For many, working for the government has long been a ticket to a middle-class lifestyle. Federal jobs offered flexibility, security, solid health care and pensions. Raises and promotions were common. Whatever happened to the economy, Uncle Sam never went bankrupt or threatened to close down.

But federal employees today are working under a three-year pay freeze. Earlier this year, many were furloughed when automatic spending cuts took hold, and about 800,000 were told not to report the money during the current shutdown. There are proposals in Congress to increase retirement contributions for government workers and politicians regularly lash out at federal workers as lazy, overpaid and unnecessary.

For Marcelo del Canto, a budget analyst for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in Rockville, Md., working for the government was supposed to be a respite from the ups and downs of the technology industry.

‘‘I worked for some pretty big companies and a lot of these Internet companies that got hit by the dot com bust, so I went through a lot of bankruptcies, laying off workers,’’ del Canto said. ‘‘My wife said ‘You really need to get out of the private sector, the federal government is really the way to go.’’’