As of this week, the number of long-term unemployed people who are no longer receiving unemployment benefits hit the 2 million mark, according to the National Employment Law Project.

At the end of last year, Congress failed to extend the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program that made sure those who had been out of work for 26 weeks or more received unemployment benefits. That immediately left 1.3 million people without a lifeline, and the ranks will swell to 2.3 million by April 5 if Democrats can’t find a way to make Republicans drop their filibuster of the extension.

Lori of Austin, Texas is one of those millions going without unemployment benefits. “I started working when I was 12 years old, started paying taxes when I was 15 years old,” she told ThinkProgress. At almost 60 years old, she has more than 40 years of experience as a registered nurse working in the neonatal intensive care unit of hospitals.

But she lost her job at the end of 2012. She went a few months without benefits on the assumption that she would quickly find new work, but that didn’t pan out. By March of last year, without a job or any prospects, she enrolled in the unemployment benefits program. She started the EUC program in September but then was cut off along with everyone else at the end of the year. “What irritates me about this is that I have worked hard all my life, I have not lived on the government nor any of their hand out programs,” she said. “This is a benefit that an employer takes out of your salary and you pay in so that when something happens, you have this benefit.”
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