So lots of people have been arguing for and against drug testing people who receive welfare benefits, at least in the state of Florida.
But I'd like to take a minute to go over some numbers. From what I've been able to pull up, there are approx 120,000 people who receive direct cash assistance from the state. Their average benefit per month is roughly $512 per person. Which, hold on and let me get my calculator out, equals about $61,440,000 per month of payments. So for one year you've got approx $737,280,000 in payments going out.
Now lets say that a drug test costs $100, and that you need to test at least twice a year to maintain your eligibility for benefits, that works out to $24,000,000. Assuming a Pass/Fail rate of 95%-5% you'll have 114,000 people still eligible for benefits with only 6,000 disqualifying themselves.
6,000 people who no longer are able to receive payments, due to their own illegal drug use save right around $3,072,000.00 a month, or a total of $36,864,000 per year.
By taking the $24,000,000 cost of testing people out of the $36 million saved by not making payments, you end up saving the state around $12 million dollars. Which when budgets are into the Billions of dollars doesn't really add up to much, but I think every little bit helps.
My question is do you think that only 5 out of every 100 people will fail a drug test, or do you think the percentage might be more or less?
