Fiscal Slope: 2 Million to Lose Emergency Unemployment Benefits

As I noted last week, the "fiscal cliff" includes expiring Bush tax cuts for high, middle and low income earners, the expiring 2% payroll tax cut, expiring Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) relief, expiring emergency unemployment benefits, and scheduled defense spending cuts (aka "sequestration").

Here is an article on the emergency unemployment benefits from Michael Fletcher at the WaPo: 2 million could lose unemployment benefits unless Congress extends program

More than 2 million Americans stand to lose their jobless benefits unless Congress reauthorizes federal emergency unemployment help before the end of the year.
...
These workers have exhausted their state unemployment insurance, leaving them reliant on the federal program.

In addition to those at risk of abruptly losing their benefits in December, 1 million people would have their checks curtailed by April if the program is not renewed ...

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more.

According to the BLS, in October there were 5.00 million workers who had been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job. This is generally trending down, but is still very high.

As the WaPo article notes, many of these people are surviving on their unemployment benefits.