More than two million jobless Americans are entering the holiday season seized with varying levels of foreboding, worry or even panic over what lies ahead as they cope with the expected cutoff of their unemployment benefits.
Their economic fates are now connected on a taut string to skirmishing between Democrats and Republicans in Washington over whether to extend federal financing for unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless.
Tuesday marked the expiration of a pair of federal programs that had extended unemployment benefits anywhere from 34 to 73 weeks on top of the 26 weeks already provided by the states.
The federal extensions have been customary in past recessions and their aftermath, but they have become ensnared lately in political jousting over the soaring budget deficit.
Some recipients have already received their final checks. If the impasse remains unresolved, others will see their payments lapse in the coming days or weeks, depending on how long they have been receiving benefits.
By the end of December, more than two million are set to lose their extended benefits, according to estimates by theNational Employment Law Project, and about a million more by the end of January.
While benefits have lapsed twice before in this downturn because of Congressional bickering — the last time, in June and July, payments were interrupted for 51 days— advocates for the unemployed are worried that if the issue is not resolved by the current lame-duck session of Congress, prospects in the next, with Republicans ascendant, are even slimmer.
That would mean a new reality facing legions of people across the country: a cutoff after six months of benefits for anyone out of work.
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