Low- and moderate-income workers in Morris County lost out on more than $123 million in federal and state earned income tax credits last year, the Morris County Board of Freeholders were told this week.

That is the amount of money workers could have claimed by filing for the Earned Income Tax Credit, said Jodi Miciak, manager of community impact for income for the United Way of Northern New Jersey, Morris County office.

Aloha Wilkins, one of those workers who filed for the EITC, said she has seen the world from the bottom of the economic barrel and didn’t like what she saw. So she is working her way back up.

A working, single mother of two children ages 8 and 3, Wilkins told the freeholders Wednesday that she has been homeless and lived in the shelter provided by the Interfaith Council for Homeless Families.

“I work fulltime as a skills instructor for the developmentally disabled and I am a fulltime student,” Wilkins said. “I am part of the working poor population.”

The earned income tax credit was created in 1975.

The United Way, with the county’s human services department, the IRS, the AARP Foundation, NORWESCAP, and the NJ 2-1-1 help line, works each tax season to encourage as many lower income workers as possible to claim the EITC then they file their annual taxes.

The agencies support free tax assistance sites across the county. For the location of a nearby site call NJ 2-1-1.

Workers can be eligible for both state and federal tax credits.

Miciak said that 40 percent of Morris County’s 492,276 residents are eligible for a tax credit, but in recent years an average of less than 13 percent of eligible residents have claimed the credit.

Of 100,845 eligible Morris County tax returns in 2009, Miciak said, 11,755 tax filers claimed the EITC. Those claims were worth $18.7 million to the county’s residents who filed, she said, with an average return of $1,591.

If all eligible Morris County filers claimed the credit, Miciak said, the income return would be $141.8 million.

For 2010, the eligible incomes range from $13,460 to $43,352 for a single person or a single person with children; and from $18,470 for a married couple ages 25 to 64 with no children to $48,363 for a married couple with three or more children.

The tax credits can range from $457 for a single person to $5,666 for a family.

Wilkins said she received more than $7,000 in her tax credit this year. She put the money toward new living room furniture, savings, and a set-aside for summer day trips for her children.

“This is the only time I have money to spend on anything other than bills,” she said.

Wilkins said she is working on an associates degree in human and social services and expects to graduate this spring with a grade point average of 3.22. She hopes to attend a four-year college to complete her degree.

“The EITC eases my financial worries and helps ease the stress caused by my struggles from being part of the working poor population,” Wilkins said. “Eventually I will be an individual who does not depend on EITC.”