Sharon Nakken
Kaplan University
CM220: College Composition ll
Thousands of welfare investigators across the nation report that only about 2% - 3% of welfare cases involve fraud (Barron, 2012). That is such a small percentage. Could fraud on that small scale really be significant? After closer examination, the significance becomes much clearer. If 2% - 3% of welfare cases are fraudulent, that means between 785,000 to 1.2 million families are receiving welfare illegally (Barron, 2012). That ends up costing taxpayers between 9.0 – 13.5 billion dollars each year (Barron, 2012). That small percentage turns into a very large number of dollars spent annually on welfare recipients who should not be receiving these benefits (Barron, 2012).
The welfare system in America today is once again in need of reform. Conditions such as mandatory drug testing, entry into an educational program, and strict time limits need to be placed on individuals who wish to receive welfare.
In 2007 The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reported that 20% of families receiving welfare claimed to have used illegal drugs at least once in the last year, while 5% said they had an ongoing drug habit (Vitter, 2011).
Some who oppose the random drug testing requirement say that it does nothing more than single out the poor and underprivileged. Deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Vanita Gupta claims “Mandatory drug testing of those receiving public benefits is just plain wrong. It demonizes and demoralizes those Americans most in need of help, and it perpetuates the dangerous, baseless notion that low-income people and communities are somehow less deserving of the constitutional protections and basic human dignity to which we are all entitled. We should not support ineffective, unconstitutional, and costly government programs that intrude into the lives of Americans and target the most vulnerable among us during the worst...
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