WASHINGTON – A majority of economists in the latest Associated Press Economy Survey expect the national unemployment rate to stay above 6 percent – the upper bounds of what's considered healthy – for at least four more years.

If the economists are correct, the job market will still be unhealthy seven years after the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009. That would be the longest stretch of high unemployment since the end of World War II.

And it means the job market and the economy – President Barack Obama's main political threats – would remain big challenges in either a second Obama term or President Mitt Romney's first term.