WASHINGTON—Two key programs Congress passed this year to expand and enhance unemployment insurance expire on Jan. 1, leaving millions of people without benefits unless lawmakers can break a monthslong deadlock over a fresh round of pandemic relief.
That raises the risks that families of jobless workers will miss payments on mortgage or auto loans, face foreclosure or eviction and fall into poverty, economists warn—just as a rising tide of coronavirus infections threatens to undercut the economic recovery.
Unemployed…
