The showdown over the fiscal cliff could cut off unemployment benefits for 40-thousand Hoosiers.
Your first six months of unemployment are paid by the state. After that, you switch to the federal jobless rolls -- the duration of those benefits ranged as high as an additional 73 weeks at the depths of the recession, and currently runs an additional 37 weeks.
But those federal benefits vanish if there‘s no deal to extend them by Saturday.
The Indiana Department of Workforce Development says they've sent postcards to those effected - warning them of the possible loss of federal benefits.
Department spokesperson Joe Frank says if benefits are cut off - it'll take time to restart them, if there's an eventual deal, and having to do that will also cost the state money, potentially millions of dollars, because of the time and effort required to reprogram D-W-D computers.