Drug Tests Welfare Recipients: Conservatism's Mistaken Belief In Punishment And Degradation

Arizona Drug-Tested 87,000 Welfare Recipients... And Got One Positive Result

Jen Hayden

The results are thin: According to USA Today, three years after the program began Arizona had tested more than 87,000 welfare recipients. 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 shockingly unimpressive when you consider the $1.7 million in savings state officials promised when they began the program.

Three. Three failed tests in 5 years of testing. The program needlessly embarrasses people who need public assistance and the cost-ratio benefit just isn't there for taxpayers. It's time to end these programs, not expand them. It's the moral and fiscally-conservative thing to do.