NY takes $5 million from lottery winners for child support, welfare

May 24, 2005, 6:38 pm (10 comments)

New York Lottery New York lottery officials announced Tuesday that the state has taken nearly $5 million from thousands of lottery jackpots before they were released to winners and applied the money to owed child-support payments or to recover a portion of welfare given to winners over the last decade.

The move is part of the state's Lottery Intercept Program that has diverted nearly $10 million in winnings to child support, and more than $25 million in winnings toward public assistance since it was adopted in 1995 by the Pataki administration.

"If someone who has failed to pay child support has the good fortune to win a lottery prize, we want to also ensure that their children share in that good fortune and get what is legally and morally entitled to them," said Gov. George Pataki. "It is also reasonable to require former public assistance recipients, who enjoy a financial windfall thanks to the lottery, to pay back at least a portion of what they were given in assistance."

 

Last year, one winner from New York City won $175,000 in a lottery game and the state took out $31,000. That's how much the winner had collected over the previous decade in social service benefits, said Michael Hayes of the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.

In the fiscal year that ended March 31, $711,660 in winnings from 1,057 people were intercepted for child support. Another $4.2 million in public assistance repayments were taken from 5,102 winners. In that year, an average of $771 was taken from jackpots of all sizes that were intercepted by the program and sent to families for child support and to the state's general fund for repayment of social services, he said.

The 2004-05 collections were increases over 2003 when $510,893 was sent to child support and $3.7 million was repaid from welfare checks.

The state Labor Department's Child Support Intercept Program removes owed child support from unemployment insurance checks and sends it to families. That resulted in $37.5 million in 2004 sent to families owed child support, for a total of $315 million in lottery windfalls sent to families since 1995.

AP

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BabyJC's avatarBabyJC

My husband was once in the MA lottery office and there was a guy in front of him cashing in a scratch ticket.  Apparently he owed child support, so they withheld his winnings and he freaked out!  There is a police officer right there though, just for these type of people.  It is sad how a person would be upset, instead of proud, that they rightfully support their children!

LOTTOMIKE's avatarLOTTOMIKE

anybody who doesn't support their own kids deserves to have winnings taken away....

bd2lucky



anybody who doesn't support their own kids deserves to have winnings taken away....



If your responsible enough to have kid then you have a responsibility to the kid.

MillionsWanted's avatarMillionsWanted

Those idiots had it coming.

Littleoldlady's avatarLittleoldlady

I agree!!  Many ,many children NEED that money..now if only there was a way to insure the money goes to the kids instead of everywhere else.

starchild_45's avatarstarchild_45

i agree about the child support and welfare. unemployment is where i draw the line. i pay to have that as a back up and comes out the employer's money. if they didn't pay their child support witht the unemployment that is a different story.

JAP69's avatarJAP69

Does the state look over the mothers shoulder to see that the child support money goes to the kid(s).

I hardly think so.

Badger's avatarBadger

Here in Wisconsin they've been doing this for some time already.  When you win a jackpot, you have to fill out all the forms and turn in your ticket. You have to come back the following day in order to receive any winnings, because it takes them a day to run a check on you. They check for owed child support, and also any money owed the state for parking tickets unpaid, and traffic tickets unpaid, as wel as a few other things. Anything you owe is deducted along with the taxes. I've got no problem wioth this personally.  If you aren't clean, you need to pay up.

CASH Only

I Agree!

LOTTOMIKE's avatarLOTTOMIKE

Does the state look over the mothers shoulder to see that the child support money goes to the kid(s).
I hardly think so.

no they most likely don't,they should....

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