State Treasuries Are Full With Missing Money
In a recent report related to the unclaimed money problems in the country, it was mentioned that almost 90% of the U.S. families have somebody who has failed to reclaim their lost funds or assets. The governors and the governing body of larger states like California and New York are mulling to utilize the unclaimed funds for state development programs.
Some of the richest states in the U.S., in terms of the unclaimed funds are: New York with $10.5 billion, California with almost $6 billion and Texas with $2 billion. According to a new report, the problem of unclaimed funds is not only limited to the federal and the state governments. Local governments are now also facing the nightmare of unclaimed money pile being added every month. Local governments have reported to have piled almost $23 billion of unclaimed funds, out of which only $1 billion was claimed back by the actual owners. The U.S. federal government holds even more, including $17 billion in unredeemed savings bonds and hundreds of billions of unclaimed dollars in IRS refunds, retirement and Social Security checks that went undelivered or weren’t cashed.
Unclaimed money has not been limited to the state treasuries alone. Banks and public financial institutions have been reporting big numbers of unclaimed money balances. Washington Mutual Bank had recent press release reporting there currently is half a million dollars in unclaimed money from former Washington Mutual Bank customers in Wisconsin.
The administrative and logistical backlog created by the unprecedented unclaimed money pile continues to boggle the authorities in charge of the unclaimed money at the federal and state agencies. Most of the states are facing these growing volumes of unclaimed money and are reporting huge additions to its unclaimed money vault every month. A larger state like California is estimating an unclaimed money volume to the tune of $5.7 billion, while New York’s pile of unclaimed money has swelled up to $9.9 billion.
Because of the low volume of owners coming forward to claim their funds, the funds in all state treasuries continues to come in fast. According to a recent count, it is estimated that almost $40 billion was piled up in various state treasuries across the nation. This means almost 30 million Americans are yet to be united with their lost funds. With every passing month, billions of unclaimed funds are being added to the state treasuries, and states like New York and California have this added burden of managing this growing pile of unclaimed funds. The smaller states are now also disclosing huge piles of unclaimed money being generated without any sign of increasing claims.
Some of the most common sources of unclaimed funds in the state treasuries are abandoned bank accounts, unclaimed savings and checking accounts, child support payments, uncashed dividends, stocks, customer deposits or over-payments, certificates of deposit, credit balances, refunds, matured life insurance policies, uncashed death benefit checks, and the contents of safety deposit boxes.
