Drug Testing Essay

By doing this it regulates the suggested amount of money to be given out but placed restrictions upon on how one may utilize those resources. By the government using the word ignorant, it feels that if you have a job or no job or limited amount of resources coming into the household, it means that at some point you were incapable of maintaining a well-balanced lifestyle for yourself. Despite our country’s wishes, the picture of welfare paints a face of the minority woman.

In today’s America, government aid is highly depended on. The US government has spent $498 billion dollars this year on welfare alone. The state of Tennessee has an average of 250,000 residents on welfare and has $3 billion dollars this year alone. To help cut costs and help tax payers, 36 states, including Tennessee, have proposed a bill to drug test all welfare recipients. Since the beginning of the year, the welfare rate has jumped 7 percent while at the same time, the welfare funds are drying up. Tennessee funds have dropped 17.5 percent, which comes out to be about $215.3 million dollars this year. State lawmakers have proposed that if drug users on welfare are

The United States has many welfare programs, such a Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), that provide social welfare payments to those in need. Welfare recipients statistically have a higher potential to use illicit drugs, making it more difficult to secure a job. Often, these benefits are abused by drug users those who lack the ability or motivation to find employment and become self-sufficient. Incorporating drug testing into the welfare systems allows the government to provide those with drug addictions the needed treatment and suspend the benefits from those who continue to use drug and test positive after treatment. In the long run, there will be a costs savings

Annually, the state of Texas provides welfare assistance and benefits to more than 100,000 residents – a 90 million dollar program ultimately funded by taxpayer dollars. The application of drug testing is to better enforce the appropriate utilization of welfare assistance and is not to discriminate against any one group of people “suspected” using of drugs. The application of active and systematically applying drug testing to those persons receiving welfare assistance, more accurately ensures that welfare assistance benefits are not providing money for narcotics, and to prevent cases of child neglect. Senate Bill 11 would requires each applicant and/or recipient to be drug tested upon requesting Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). This would provide a constructive, two-way consequence in the form of: preventing taxpayer money from being used in a manner other than its’ intention in funding drug dealers, and helping current and/or

While it is true that there are some jobs that do require a drug test prior to employment, the employees have a choice in the matter. If they do not wish to take a drug test, or if they fail the test, they can choose to find another job. However, by making it mandatory that welfare recipients be drug tested, they do not have a choice. If welfare recipients fail a drug test or refuse to take it, they don’t have the option to find another government to get the assistance that they need. Most welfare recipients are in need of public assistance due to situations that they cannot control. For example, if a single mother of three kids gets laid off due to the harsh economy, at some point, she has no other choice but to ask for help. Eventually, she may have to utilize public assistance that the government has put in place such as food stamps, Medicaid, or welfare. If the government makes drug testing mandatory, the single mother of three has only one choice to make—do whatever the government requires to feed

Welfare is a public assistance program that is designed to help families who do not have enough money to support themselves. Welfare was developed to improve the quality of life and living standards for the poor and underprivileged. This program started because of the hardships people faced during the Great Depression of the 1930s. In 1935, public assistance for the poor became the government’s responsibility. The money comes from the taxes that are deducted from the working class. Testing welfare recipients for drug abuse stereotypes the poor, is unconstitutional, and has become a big burden.

Since the reformation of welfare in 1996, nearly all states have attempted to pass legislation to require the use of drug testing among welfare recipients. Thirteen states have passed legislation and there are currently seven states testing applicants for drugs. The results have been somewhat anticlimactic, as the number of positive drug test results is lower than the national average. There are many concerns surrounding the issue of drug testing welfare recipients, including the cost, constitutionality, and the effect on children.

There has been an ongoing controversy as to whether welfare recipients should have to have drug testing done. Drug testing will ensure that recipients will not abuse the money they’re given by the government. Having people on welfare take drug test is advantageous because it could save the system money, it would help social workers identify children who are around drug abuse, and it would deter people from purchasing and using illegal drugs; however, it does have a downside such as people who are on prescription medication will show false positives, it can be an invasion of privacy and drug testing can take hundreds and even thousands of dollars to administer.

“Most states that conduct welfare drug testing combine paper questionnaires followed by physical drug testing if an applicant's answers on the questionnaire indicate a strong probability that the applicant is a substance abuser”, states Larsen. According to a suspicion based testing on TANF applicants, over 55 out 468 people resulted positive in drug abuse, ultimately 32 people out of 55 lost their benefits. “Tennessee residents who test positive can still receive their welfare benefits if they enroll in treatment programs”, Larsen said. But is this enough to keep recipients away from drugs? “Recipients can lie on their questionnaires about previous drug abuse”, said Larsen. To prevent this from happening, The Tennessee Department of Health suggested random selection of drug testing to recipients. Seven states thus far have active drug testing

Florida's policy of requiring drug testing for welfare applicants appears to have reduced new welfare enrollments by as much as 48 percent. Welfare recipients in Florida now will have to undergo screening for illegal drug use. “Gov. Rick Scott says will ‘increase personal accountability and prevent Florida's tax dollars from subsidizing drug addiction.’”(Florida to drug-test welfare recipients) It starts on July 1, the Florida Department of Children and Family Services is required to conduct the drug tests on adults applying for assistance. The aid recipients would be responsible for the cost of the screening, which they would reimburse in their assistance if they qualify. Parents who fail the drug test may assign another individual to receive the benefits on behalf of the children. Although drug testing in Florida has been shut down because the judge says it goes against Americans rights from unreasonable searches. Some supporters say that you need to be drug free to prepare them for jobs anyways and that business have been requiring these drug test for years. They also say that the government so take these extra precautions to ensure that tax payers money doesn’t

When the United States’ welfare program was created during the Great Depression, it was meant to temporarily relieve the burdens of the one-fourth of American families who were unemployed, and struggling financially. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Social Security Act in 1935, then amended it in 1939 to create programs to assist families with unemployment compensation, and to create government agencies to oversee these programs, including Health and Human Services. The purpose of the welfare program was to provide short-term assistance to families in need while they got back on their feet, and found new employment. It was and is still funded by the hard-earned money of American taxpayers. Since that time, government assistance programs have progressed to the point of serving 49.2 percent of the population according to 2011 statistics, released in 2014.7 Of those receiving benefits, approximately 20 percent have been on the program for over five years. These facts go against the initial purpose of the welfare program as a temporary crutch. Studies have shown that about 20 percent of welfare recipients have tested for, or reported illicit drug use (although, those numbers vary and can be higher, based on the testing method used). Taxpayers should be aware that their taxes are funding these drug users’ illegal lifestyles. Therefore, drug testing should be a mandatory

109,631,000 Americans receive benefits from one or more federal funded programs. Throughout this project, I will be talking about different subjects related to government assistance. I will be referring to the new subject being recently talked about here in Wisconsin, drug testing welfare recipients. I also will be talking about the good and bad in government assistance, that relates back to government assistance abuse. When talking about abuse in government assistance, additionally will be talking about better monitoring in certain situations. Many thoughts go through everyday taxpayers on why they should be the ones paying for others to get help, especially when individuals do not have an idea about getting a job to get back on their feet.

One of the many goals of the American Welfare System is to provide financial assistance to U.S citizens who are unable to support themselves. Government funds are provided in hopes that many of these able bodied citizens will eventually find a way to become financially independent and economically productive. However, there is a percentage of welfare recipients that use their government funding to purchase and abuse illicit drugs. When welfare is abused in this manner, the system loses credibility and the long-term goals of seeing financially self-sufficient citizens, and economic progress on both micro and macro levels, are not only compromised, they are regressed by the negative impacts of illegal drug use. The most common (and commonly debated) method of weeding out citizens who choose to abuse the welfare system is enforcing mandatory drug testing on all welfare recipients. This method is an ongoing controversy involving elements of legality, economics, budget analysis, a violation of rights, the allocation of government funds, and discriminatory stereotypes of welfare recipients. Regardless of the diverse array of fundamental complexities involved with executing or rejecting this preventative procedure, most Americans’ opinions are simply based

Some argue that by requiring drug testing for all welfare recipients, the state would be unreasonably infringing on the rights of individuals.

Virtually everyone who has a job today, got it because of their skills as well as their ability to pass a drug test. This may often lead to people questioning what they can do about an upcoming test. Can you really eliminate the evidence of what you did the night before last or are you doomed to failure? What happens if you are not sure that you will be able to pass that test? Can you avoid it or must you go through with it and then figure out how to handle a bad result? When looking for a new job or facing a random drug screening, all of these questions seem to matter just a little bit more. It is very important that you take the time to learn what the possibilities are if you fail your drug test. Do not worry. You can overcome it, if you