Drug Testing for Welfare

I saw this post recently on somebody's Facebook status:

Kentucky just passed the best law ever: To be on Foodstamps, Medicaid or cash assistance for your children or yourself you have to pass a drug test. Now every other state should do the same. If you agree, repost this. People that work have to take a drug test, so should they! Amen! Repost if you agree.

Now, first off, I have to say that I am ALWAYS leery of these sorts of things. They are like the new email forwards. They spread like mad and rarely have any validity. Naturally, I checked Snopes out on this one. And what do you know? It's only partially true. The law has been proposed, but it has not yet been voted upon. Missouri lawmakers are considering a similar law for their state. Of the most importance, though is that Michigan started a drug screening program for welfare recipients in 1999, and this program was stopped when a federal court ruled that such drug testing was contrary to the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unlawful search and seizure.

With all that said, let's get down to the real problem with such a law:

It would cost FAR MORE MONEY than it would save. Most people, even welfare recipients, don't use drugs. As much as some people would like us to think that the vast majority of people on welfare are sitting on their rears using crack all day, it just isn't true. (Especially if they are using crack. They would probably be doing a lot more than sitting on their rears, though not necessarily working, which is what we'd like them to be doing.)

To drug test every welfare recipient would cost a lot of money, even if the drug tests were only annually or were only done randomly. In order to justify the cost, there would have to be enough welfare recipients with positive drug tests (thus losing their benefits) to balance the outlay of the processing of the drug tests. Just to give an example, the cheapest drug test is a urinalysis, and it costs about $25 per specimen to analyze. Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time finding out exactly how much money an average welfare recipient receives in the United States. I know it varies by state, but when you really crunch the numbers, I seriously doubt this sort of program would be worth it.

Plus, drug testing is notoriously inaccurate. The cheapest form is inaccurate about 25% of the time. The most accurate urinalysis drug test costs more like $100-$200 per analysis. Even those can be tricked by the user drinking ample amounts of water in the days leading up to the test. Hair tests tend to be quite accurate and also substantially more expensive. Blood tests are the most accurate, the most invasive and also very expensive.

I really do understand the frustration behind the original Facebook post. It's annoying to think that your hard-earned money is going to some moocher who does drugs all day. But the fact is that your hard-earned money is probably not going to a drug-using moocher. If we want to focus on improving welfare, we need to focus on how to get people off of welfare ON THEIR OWN rather than kicking them off. I guess this would mean welfare-to-work programs and other programs that incentivise working. For example, a person who can make more money on welfare than they can working a minimum wage job is not going to be motivated to go get a job. It would also mean better funding for work training programs and better financial literacy throughout our society, particularly for the people in the lower classes.

I don't know if there is anything we can do to rid ourselves 100% of lazy moochers. There will always be people who figure out how to work the system. But developing welfare systems that promote work and sound financial choices are a much more logical route to getting people off welfare than drug testing everybody in hopes of catching a few cheaters.