Leroy Fick from Saginaw Michigan won a $2 million lottery in 2010. While this sounds great, somehow Leroy is still receiving food stamps to help put food on his table. Why? Well, Leroy took the lump sump payout, bought a new house and a car and then invested the rest. Since his income is based on the amount of investment income he’s receiving from the invested money, and that’s below the food assistance threshold, he qualifies. Wow.
Everybody is up in arms about this, as you can imagine, and the legislators in Michigan are working on trying to close that loophole. This reminds me of an old friend we know who owns somewhere around 16-17 rental homes and has significant assets in the bank but chooses to defer most of his income. This qualifies him for assistance programs in our state. I have to agree that there should be some sort of asset based test to see if someone is truly in need of public assistance.
wow, that is ridiculous. there are so many loopholes for the rich, and then everyone complains when we actually help out the poor!
Many of the “poor” are just gaming the system with food stamps too. Drop the whole program.