Yep. This has been a giant money-waster in every state that’s implemented it (except for the politically-connected companies that get the drug-testing contracts):
But an examination of Arizona’s experiment reveals a flawed policy that has failed to accomplish its stated goal. Instead of saving the state money, it’s cost taxpayers millions of dollars while doing little more than further stigmatizing poverty and marginalizing the poor.
The results are thin: According to USA Today, Arizona tested more than 87,000 welfare recipients in the three years after the program 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.
Susie,
The author of the article makes the mistake of assuming that the point is to find welfare cheats. The point of the testing program is to funnel public money to the private testing company, preferably a friend of the politicians pushing the legislation.
Wingnut welfare! Same as how school-test money financed GWB’s brother’s company. No Wingnut left behind!