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The results are thin: According to USA Today, more than 87,000 welfare recipients went through Arizona's program in the three years after it began. The total number of drug cheats caught was exactly one — a single positive result, which saved the state precisely $560.
Checking in again in March, the Arizona Sonora News Service cited state Department of Economic Security figures which found that over the course of more than five years, "42 people have been asked to take a follow-up drug test and 19 actually took the test, 16 of whom passed. The other 23 were stripped of their benefits for failing to take the drug test."
That adds up to a grand total of three failed tests from 2009-2014. The net savings reaped from withholding benefits for those who either tested positive or failed to complete a drug test was around $3,500, once the $500 cost of testing the 19 is factored in, according to one state agency report. The haul is especially unimpressive when you consider the $1.7 million in savings state officials promised when they unveiled the program.
Way to go Arizona to prove why drug testing is a waste of time and money. Maybe they want to end this big government program now that they have learned they are just throwing away money on it.
All drug testing does is make a welfare scheme more expensive. This usually how republicans reform something.
The proper and only moral way to reform welfare is to end it entirely.
All drug testing does is make a welfare scheme more expensive. This usually how republicans reform something.
The proper and only moral way to reform welfare is to end it entirely.
You also must believe that the drug testing of welfare recipients is just another attempt of the Republicans to deny Welfare benefits to the poor.
When someone is approved to receive welfare benefits in Arizona, that person is screened by being given a three-question form, which asks if the recipient has used any illegal drugs in the past 30 days. If the applicant answers yes, then a drug test is required.
OP Didn't include later correction. Those numbers were made up.
Fascinating (well maybe not) that this part of the article was left off.....
Correction: July 24, 2015 A previous version of this article overstated how much Arizona has spent on its drug testing program, and misrepresented how many people were subjected to testing. While the program has not reached its goal of saving $1.7 million, the cost of testing for drugs has been relatively low. And while 87,000 people have gone through the state's welfare system, which includes drug screening, in the last three years, not all of them have been tested for drugs.
In other words, they simply made up the numbers and to fit a predetermined narrative.
In 2011, Florida passed a law to require every single applicant for TANF to pass a urine drug test, at his or her own expense (not just those for whom there was a reasonable suspicion). In four month of implementation,108 out of 4,086 applicants tested positive at a cost of $118,140.
The issue with this statement is that it fails to mention the 1600 people that refused the test....
You also must believe that the drug testing of welfare recipients is just another attempt of the Republicans to deny Welfare benefits to the poor.
If you can afford recreational drugs you don't need welfare.
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OP Didn't include later correction. Those numbers were made up.
