WASHINGTON (AP) — The jobs crisis has left so many people out of work for so long that most of America's unemployed are no longer receiving unemployment benefits.

Early last year, 75 percent were receiving checks. The figure is now 48 percent — a shift that points to a growing crisis of long-term unemployment. Nearly one-third of America's 14 million unemployed have had no job for a year or more.

Congress is expected to decide by year's end whether to continue providing emergency unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks in the hardest-hit states. If the emergency benefits expire, the proportion of the unemployed receiving aid would fall further.

The ranks of the poor would also rise. The Census Bureau says unemployment benefits kept 3.2 million people from slipping into poverty last year. It defines poverty as annual income below $22,314 for a family of four.

Yet for a growing share of the unemployed, a vote in Congress to extend the benefits to 99 weeks is irrelevant. They've had no job for more than 99 weeks. They're no longer eligible for benefits.

Their options include food stamps or other social programs. Nearly 46 million people received food stamps in August, a record total. That figure could grow as more people lose unemployment benefits.

So could the government's disability rolls. Applications for the disability insurance program have jumped about 50 percent since 2007.

"There's going to be increased hardship," said Wayne Vroman, an economist at the Urban Institute.

The number of unemployed has been roughly stable this year. Yet the number receiving benefits has plunged 30 percent.

Government unemployment benefits weren't designed to sustain people for long stretches without work. They usually don't have to. In the recoveries from the previous three recessions, the longest average duration of unemployment was 21 weeks, in July 1983.

By contrast, in the wake of the Great Recession, the figure reached 41 weeks in September. That's the longest on records dating to 1948. The figure is now 39 weeks.

"It was a good safety net for a shorter recession," said Carl Van Horn, an economist at Rutgers University. It assumes "the economy will experience short interruptions and then go back to normal."

Weekly unemployment checks average about $300 nationwide. If the extended benefits aren't renewed, growth could slow by up to a half-percentage point next year, economists say.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that each $1 spent on unemployment benefits generates up to $1.90 in economic growth. The CBO has found that the program is the most effective government policy for increasing growth among 11 options it's analyzed.

Jon Polis lives in East Greenwich, R.I., one of the 20 states where 99 weeks of benefits are available. He used them all up after losing his job as a warehouse worker in 2008. His benefits paid for groceries, car maintenance and health insurance.

Now, Polis, 55, receives disability insurance payments, food stamps and lives in government-subsidized housing. He's been unable to find work because employers in his field want computer skills he doesn't have.

"Employers are crying that they can't find qualified help," he said. But the ones he interviewed with "weren't willing to train anybody."

From late 2007, when the recession began, to early 2010, the number of people receiving unemployment benefits rose more than four-fold, to 11.5 million.

But the economy has remained so weak that an analysis of long-term unemployment data suggests that about 2 million people have used up 99 weeks of checks and still can't find work.

Contributing to the smaller share of the unemployed who are receiving benefits: Some of them are college graduates or others seeking jobs for the first time. They aren't eligible. Only those who have lost a job through no fault of their own qualify.

The proportion of the unemployed receiving benefits usually falls below 50 percent during an economic recovery. Many have either quit jobs or are new to the job market and don't qualify.

Today, the proportion is falling for a very different reason: Jobs remain scarce. So more of the unemployed are exhausting their benefits.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has noted that the long-term unemployed increasingly find it hard to find work as their skills and professional networks erode. In a speech last month, Bernanke called long-term unemployment a "national crisis" that should be a top priority for Congress.

Lawmakers will have to decide whether to continue the extended benefits by the end of this year. If the program ends, nearly 2.2 million people will be cut off by February.

Congress has extended the program nine times. But it might balk at the $45 billion cost. It will be the first time the Republican-led House will vote on the issue.

Xi'An, China -- There's nothing like a visit to China to get you in touch with your inner Thomas Malthus. The 18^th century British scholar is known, centuries after his death, for pessimism about the capacity of the earth and its inhabitants to produce enough food, energy and other resources to sustain the rising population of humans.

The last few centuries, in which rising living standards coincided with population growth, have debunked Malthus. But spend some time in China — and in particular in China's interior — and you'll start to think otherwise.

Shanghai has long been one of the world's large, great cities. To a longtime resident of New York, the amalgamation of skyscrapers is readily comprehensible. Yes, the scale and the pace of growth is impressive, even shocking. But if New York works without overly stressing the planet, so should Shanghai.

The anxiety picks up when you leave the comparatively well-trodden coasts for the interior. Here, you'll find cities that you've likely never heard of, that are as big and sprawling as any in America, and getting larger by leaps and bounds. Like Xi'an, which I visited this week along with a group of journalists.

Xi'an today is a huge city (population about eight million and growing) that each year pulls in hundreds of thousands of Chinese from the impoverished countryside. Bumping through the traffic, we passed endless blocks of apartment buildings, office complexes, factories and lower-slung districts destined for development.

When Americans think of industrial parks, we tend to think of a dozen-odd office buildings set along a winding road, or a bunch of low-slung industrial sheds. Here in Xi'an, the parks are themselves the size of cities. We visited the Xi'An National Civil Aerospace Industrial Base (XCAIB), which is in effect a new city a few miles southeast of the ancient city center. Here, office buildings and soaring residential complexes are sprouting from the soil of the 86-square kilometer zone.

Our destination in the afternoon, the Xi'an Hi-Tech Industries Development Zone, was even larger. It took 25 minutes to drive from one section of the zone to the Software Park. Each zone features an imposing headquarters with soaring lobbies, cavernous meeting rooms filled with overstuffed chairs, and immense scale models of the area.

China seeks to impress visitors with size and abundance. But you begin to wonder. Where will all the cement come from? The steel? The water? If the cities continue to expand at their current pace, who will provide all the meat, noodles and vegetables that cause Lazy Susans to buckle? And, above all, where will the energy come from?

China talks a great game when it comes to alternative energy. Every major city has subway systems and extensive public transport. The country's industrial policy encourages energy efficiency. The XCAIB district wants to become a center for LED lighting, and has mandated its use through the zone. At the Hi-Tech Industries Development Zone, we visited an Applied Materials facility, where researchers are figuring out ways to improve the efficiency of solar panels. There are signs and billboards for the solar industry all over the place. (A strange thing, given that, between the clouds, rain, and pollution, you can easily go a week in China without seeing the sun.)

And yet China's impressive, frequently astonishing growth is powered almost exclusively by non-renewable fossil fuels. A note in the brochure for the Xi'An National Civil Aerospace industrial Base says it plans "to build 6 high-temperature coal-fired boilers with total heating supply of 696 MW." (That's enough to power about 70,000 U.S. homes)

In economies like China's, electricity usage rises at about 70-80 percent of the rate of the economy, so if China grows 10 percent, its need for electricity rises 7 to 8 percent. Add in the fact that China retires some dirty coal plants each year, and it needs to add a huge amount of electrical capacity just to keep up with demand. China's electrical capacity is expected to rise about 8.8 percent in 2011 to 1050 gigawatts. And most of that growth will come from coal-fired plants, perhaps the least sustainable form of electricity generation available. Solar power accounts for less than 1 percent of China's electricity generation. Given the pace of growth, it's very difficult for alternative energy like wind and solar power to gain market share in China.

Then there's the traffic — oh lord, the traffic. The process of urbanization in Xi'an is, in some ways, just beginning. And yet at rush hour it can easily take an hour to move six miles through the wide boulevards that are clogged with vehicles. There's not a hybrid or electric vehicle in sight. Yes, oil production continues to grow. But it's difficult to imagine it keeping pace with the rise in car sales, economic activity, and gas-sucking traffic in China.

The beeping and the braking, the chalky air, the new terminal at Xi'an's airport, the blinking lights and the construction cranes that loom like sentries in the mist — all these are signs that China, which essentially sat out the 20^th century, is finally standing up. Almost by definition, China's rising living standards will lead to more intensive resource use. As China's 1.3 billion people start to consume like Americans long have, we'd be well advised to figure out how to do more with less — and to read a little Malthus.

Daniel Gross is economics editor at Yahoo! Finance. He's traveling in China this week under the auspices of the China U.S. Exchange Foundation.

Follow him on Twitter @grossdm; email him at grossdaniel11@yahoo.com.