Cash Unclaimed Media Room

Unclaimed Treasury Money is still lying with the U.S. treasury in the absence of any rightful owners claiming these lost monies. While millions of U.S. residents (around 28 million) are still relying on food stamps to survive, the rightful owners of this treasury money are still elusive.

The combined value of unclaimed money in the 50 states is over $30 billion and this is being held in the various State Treasury Department. States like New York and California have the largest volumes of unclaimed money.

Owners of lost money are being instensely searched for by the U.S. treasury. Currently, the U.S. treasury is home to billions of dollars in unclaimed bonds, treasury bills, notes, war bonds and accrued interests. Online promotion campaigns, digital awareness program, print media campaigns to radio campaigns – Every possible advertising mechanism, has been put in place by the State treasury to reunite the owners of the lost money with their unclaimed cash and interests.

State departments of unclaimed money across the U.S. is storing more than $40 billion in unclaimed cash and property. This roughly translates to more than 30 million Americans who have missing money lying somewhere in their state treasuries. While billions are added to this pool of unclaimed money every year, many of the U.S. residents are still unaware of the process of recovery.

The bigger states, like California, Texas and New York, are getting richer every year because of the growing volume of unclaimed money. These state-held unclaimed funds are in the form of abandoned bank accounts, unclaimed savings and checking accounts, child support payments, uncashed dividends, stocks, customer deposits or overpayments, certificates of deposit, credit balances, refunds, matured life insurance policies, uncashed death benefit checks, and the contents of safety deposit boxes.

Billions of dollars in missing money is housed in the state treasury of Wisconsin, according to the State treasurer of Wisconsin. This property is comprised of unclaimed savings and checking accounts, child support payments, uncashed dividends, stocks, customer deposits or overpayments, certificates of deposit, credit balances, refunds, matured life insurance policies, uncashed death benefit checks, and the contents of safety deposit boxes. One reliable place to search for unclaimed property in Wisconsin is at Wisconsin Unclaimed Property Online Search.

The state of New York is home to one of the largest unclaimed money pools in the country. The New York state treasury is taking all the measures to relocate the rightful owners of the unclaimed money. At current count, the state of New York currently holds nearly $10 billion in unclaimed funds. Most of these unclaimed funds come from come from 25 million inactive bank, business, and government accounts unclaimed by their owners and are currently in the care of the state controller’s office.

Increasing unclaimed funds is a logistic nightmare for the government. The government is taking all the measures to return these unclaimed funds to their rightful owners. The initiatives are being taken on both the center and state levels. Most of the states have already adopted an unclaimed funds website.

These websites have reliable and relevant information regarding the search and claim process of unclaimed funds. All of these websites have online claim forms which can be submitted with the click of a button.

Colorado has proven satisfactory results in giving back unclaimed money to its citizens. The Department of Treasury of the Colorado state is satisfied that the results of Great Colorado Payback are very encouraging, and the state is hopeful of emptying its coffers of the unclaimed cash that legally belongs to the citizens.

State Treasurer Cary Kennedy recently announced that the state paid claims totaling over $500,000 to a single claimant in Fort Collins. It was one of the 20 claims valued between $40,000 and $1,000,000 during the last fiscal year. This year the department had eight claims that were worth more than $100,000. However, an average claim is about $100.

The large amounts held by the states of unclaimed cash is appealing to officials as a solution to fix the high budge deficit. The center on Budget and Policy Priorities has set the states seriously thinking over the budget deficit. It estimates that the combined state budget deficit over the next two and a half years is likely to be about $350 billion. This will account for about 20% of the state budget.

Unclaimed money has become a major concern for many U.S. States. U.S. state governments are perplexed over the situation, in spite of the aggressive efforts taken up by the states to spread awareness, inform owners and return unclaimed cash to the citizens, the turnover of unclaimed money is smaller than expected.

Various states have launched variety of programs, hunts, campaigns, road runs, etc., to reach out to the owners and return the money; however, the amount of money returned to the owners form a very small part of $32 billion of unclaimed money.

Unclaimed Money Remains Constant

U.S. states are trying their best to return $32 billion of unclaimed cash to the Americans who are the rightful owners of the cash. States are finding every possible avenue, like sending personal memos, arranging outreach events, carrying out TV broadcasts, etc., to reach out to every citizen.

In order to spread awareness about unclaimed cash at grass root level, states have sought refuge of newspapers as well. Newspapers have a very deep penetration and they are available to almost every citizen across the states.

Initiatives by the States