Jobless since January, Donald Money has already moved in with his elderly parents, stopped going to the movies and started using less of his prescription medication so it will last longer. This month, something else will fall by the wayside: Money’s unemployment check. The 43-year-old former printing press operator is among the more than 1.3 million Americans whose unemployment insurance benefits will run out by the end of the year, placing extra strain on an economy that is just starting to recover from the worst downturn in a generation.

Tonya was living the American dream. The mother of a 10-year-old daughter, she had a steady job at a property management company while her husband was a sanitation worker for a major company in Richmond. “We were middle class. We were working so hard,“ Tonya said last week. She’s relying on food stamps now. It all began to fall apart 10 months ago. Her husband lost his job, then two months later, she lost hers.

Not being able to find a job is frustrating in the best of circumstances, but it may be even more frustrating when welfare-to-work reform requires you to have one. Sholana Woolridge, 29, knows the feeling.

Millions of Virginians will see direct benefits of the federal economic-stimulus package Wednesday, as tax credits start to show up in worker paychecks and food-stamp benefits rise 13.6 percent. A tax credit amounting to $400 a year for most workers will benefit more than 2.9 million Virginia taxpayers.

In her first solo trip outside Washington, First Lady Michelle Obama recently visited Fort Bragg, N.C. She used the opportunity to tout her commitment to the “plight of military families.“ In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,“ Mrs. Obama underscored how important it was that military families know they now have an ally in the White House.