Thousands of federal workers in Colorado are furloughed indefinitely as Congress remains deadlocked on federal funding .

The Colorado Department of Labor says there are 54,300 federal workers in Colorado, which is about 3,000 less than there were in December. It says the state will provide unemployment benefits to those who are furloughed and deduct that money from their back pay when the shutdown ends.

Dueling bills to end the shutdown failed in the Senate Wednesday and there are no more votes scheduled until Friday. The White House is warning that if Congress does not make progress soon, some federal workers will be fired.

"This is not fun and games for the American people," said Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat and Colorado's senior senator.

He says there is a bipartisan grou

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