Ms. Sandeno, 44, manages 25 wildlife ecologists, biologists, engineers and foresters who make anywhere from $28,000 to $100,000 a year, which puts many of them at the top of the local pay scale. Their missing checks will very likely be felt far beyond their own bank accounts.

Ms. Sandeno says that since they were furloughed, her staff members stopped eating out at the Dirtbean cafe or Rayetta’s Lunch Box in Marlinton, a town of 1,000. “They are just normal people who don’t want to file for unemployment,” she says. There aren’t a lot of alternatives in the area.

“It’s 45 miles to the closest McDonald’s,” she said. The shutdown also derailed Ms. Sandeno’s plan to make two job offers to local residents and promote one of her employees.

“Those are three families that would be getting above-average pay,” she said.

As globalization has shuttered factories and decimated entire industries, federal employment has been a bastion of stability. It has not grown, and occupies a shrinking share of the overall labor market, but it remains an equalizer for African-Americans and women, who are far more likely to earn high salaries working for the government than they would with a company.