Lawmakers in Michigan are fighting to close the loopholes that allowed over 3,500 lottery winners in the state to receive public assistance last year.
A new report from the Michigan state agency on Monday revealed that about 14 percent of lottery winners continued to receive government aid or lived with people on welfare or food stamps.
The count stems from a 2012 state law that required the state to match a list of lottery winners of $1,000 or more with recipients of public assistance. The law was prompted after legislators discovered two cases in which people used food stamps despite winning jackpots of $700,000 and $850,000.
Though the law included a requirement for asset-based means testing to help determine eligibility for public assistance, the head of the state Department of Human Services said more than 2,000 lottery winners are continuing to receive public aid because certain benefits are not covered by the tests or because of other issues. Just 565 cases were closed as a result of the law.
"With the match system, we can now identify substantial winnings, but the loopholes that allow lottery winners to continue to collect various benefits need to be closed, through amending state and federal law and policy," DHS Director Maura Corrigan said in a statement.
However, because the 3,544 winners took home $6,800 on average, advocates for the working class question the extent of the problem.
"We agree that big lottery winners should not be getting benefits designed to help people meet basic needs," said Judy Putnam, spokeswoman for the Michigan League for Public Policy. "But having said that, the cases that seem to be driving this - they're extremely unusual and rare. How much have we been spending to get to a few bad apples?"
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