Nearly 2 million long-term jobless lack benefits

Almost two million Americans who have been unemployed for at least six months are missing out on benefits since Congress let the program expire, and it's likely that some of them live in your coverage area. In seven states—California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania—more than 100,000 people are going without benefits, Jake Grovum reports for Stateline. In most other states, the numbers are in the thousands.

"From 2008 through the first half of 2013, Washington spent $252 billion on extended benefits for least 24 million unemployed Americans," Grovum writes. The National Employment Law Project said "If the program is not reinstated before April, states and their unemployed workers will have missed out on more than $5 billion in federal money." (For a state-by-state interactive map of benefit cuts click here; example below)