WASHINGTON -- Millions of Americans have been forced to rely on unemployment payments for extended periods as the nation struggles through its longest high joblessness period in a generation, and critics are taking aim, saying the Depression-era program created as a temporary bridge for laid-off workers is turning into an expensive entitlement.

About 11.4 million out-of-work people now collect unemployment compensation, at a cost of $10 billion a month. Half of them have been receiving payments for more than six months, the usual insurance limit.

But under multiple extensions enacted by the federal government in response to the downturn, workers can collect the payments for as long as 99 weeks in states with the highest unemployment rates -- the longest period since the program's inception.

The unemployed say extensions help to tide them over in unusually difficult times when jobs are hard to come by. Although unemployment held steady at 9.7 percent in February, millions of jobs have been lost in the downturn -- particularly in the hardest-hit sectors including real estate, construction, manufacturing and financial services. Many experts say those jobs are unlikely to return, even when the economy recovers.

But complaints that extending unemployment payments discourages job-seeking have begun to bubble into the political debate. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., recently single-handedly held up the latest extension, a bill to keep unemployment benefits in place for another 30 days, saying Congress should find other cuts to cover its $10 billion price tag.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., did not join Mr. Bunning's effort but defended his colleague's point of view. Mr. Kyl told the Senate that he questioned why anyone would see unemployment benefits as helpful to the economy or the jobs market. "If anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work," he said. "I am sure most of them would like work, and probably have tried to seek it, but you can't argue it is a job enhancer."

Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Center, says there's a good reason that people are out of work for so long: There are six unemployed Americans for every available job.

The 14.9 million jobless Americans have been out of work an average of 29.7 weeks, just below January's 30.2-week average. Those levels are the highest since the government began keeping those records in the 1950s, according to Mr. Stettner.

Unemployment benefits were created as part of the Social Security Act in 1935, intended to provide the unemployed some portion of their income while helping the economy weather down times. Nearly two-thirds of the jobless collect unemployment benefits, which go only to those who have earned a certain amount of money in the previous year, and who lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

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