When? This was the level I failed to meet for AdWords when I had a blog around 2007. What Google or other companies were doing in 2005 is so long ago that it’s hardly relevant.
Not for youtube. I made a video and got stuck at $85 or so which has been sitting there. And the gate to get any ad revenue at all has been raised so I'd have to get pretty serious to get the hours watched to earn the remaining $15
In California (I assume other states have similar) the trick is to wait long enough such that it becomes unclaimed property. At that point, Google will surrender your 85 dollars to the state government and you can fill out some paperwork to collect it.
Source: happened to me via a Minecraft channel I used to run over a decade ago and essentially abandoned around 2013.