When Sen. Jim Bunning (R) of Kentucky held up a bill authorizing the extension of certain unemployment benefits Friday, he put the plans of hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans on hold. By allowing extended benefits to expire, Congress has put the plans of a few hundred unemployed Americans on hold. Are you worried about your benefits? With those benefits set to expire at midnight Saturday, here’s a look at what they can expect: 1. What’s the immediate impact? There’s little practical impact over the next few days. Even though the extended benefit program officially ends Saturday, unemployed Americans will still be able to file Sunday and Monday for the benefits they are entitled to this week. It’s the benefits for next week that would be affected. 2. How many people are affected? At the outset, a couple hundred thousand of the nearly 5.4 million unemployed American receiving benefits will be affected. If Congress doesn’t act, the number of Americans will grow to 400,000 during the first two weeks of March and nearly 3 million by May, according to the Labor Department. 3. Are all unemployed Americans at risk? No. The […]