Oh look.

[conuly]

They have managed to find a person - one, count it, one! - who probably should not be receiving food stamps but is.

Of course, most lottery winners are broke within a few years anyway, and two million doesn't go as far as you think nowadays. Just FYI.

Comments

[mc776]

Well, they really aren't income, and of course what you said, so nope they haven't found that one person yet. :V

[conuly]

Well, if he, right now, has about a million dollars in the bank that he can access (there's dispute about how much he lost in taxes, but even he doesn't say the government took more than half of it) he probably shouldn't be getting food stamps. I'm okay with saying that. I am.

But I'm not going to lose any sleep over him doing so either.

[mc776]

I'd rather that a millionaire get food stamps than the government pry even more invasively before giving benefits to people who need them, but point taken.

(A million dollars is IIRC equivalent to $50k/y for 20 years...)

[conuly]

(A million dollars is IIRC equivalent to $50k/y for 20 years...)

Which for one person is a livable income in many areas still. Or he may have gotten it all in a lump sum.

[ironychan.livejournal.com]

I can tell you with absolute confidence that if I won two million it would not take me 'a few years' to go broke. A few weeks would do it.

[conuly]

Yes, well, let's try to be optimistic here.

[xianghua.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine's mother won a 'Valued at $60,000 custom motorcycle'. She's now $4K in the hole - she had to pay taxes on it to bring it home and being a custom, it's got no blue book value so selling it is proving problematic. Yeah, the dude shouldn't be getting food stamps, but... whine bitch moan eyeroll. Oh noez.

[leora.livejournal.com]

It likely would unless you sold off the winnings. Lotteries don't actually tend to pay what they claim. Large lotteries tend to pay that amount over the course of a large number of years - not adjusted for inflation. If you want money instantly, you have to sell your winnings for a much smaller amount, the actual value is less than the stated value. But if you don't sell it, you have a smaller, steadier income stream.

I dislike though the way lotteries tend to mislead people about what they might win. At least, last I looked into it, which was quite a while ago, and I don't really care enough to check back.

[conuly]

I dislike though the way lotteries tend to mislead people about what they might win.

I dislike the way they're a special tax on the poor.

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Funny, I thought it wasn't the poor generally, but just those with bad math skillz. (We buy tickets VERY occasionally, and win a $3 prize often enough to offset the expense. But I suspect you're not talking about the one-ticket-every-six-weeks kind of buyer.)

[conuly]

Do rich people even buy tickets every six weeks? I mean, I wouldn't if I were rich. (I don't as I'm poor either, but that's beside the point. If I were rich, I wouldn't even think about finding a winning lottery ticket conveniently on the ground!)

[conuly]

Yeah, it's not like Mr. Lottery Winner is the guy breaking the bank here.