These long term unemployed workers -- those who haven't found work in more than six months -- are the state's last troubling economic hurdle.

Janet Bauer is with the Oregon Center for Public Policy.

"The ending of federal benefits will immediately affect about 18-thousand Oregonians and through 2014, 76-thousand looking for work but not finding it will be affected. That's about the same as the population of Bend."

Last month, one in three unemployed Oregoinians had been out of work for longer than six months.