About those welfare druggies. . .

Mississippi Center for Justice - Mississippi has screened 5,578 TANF applicants for drug use since August. Only eight (0.14 percent) have tested positive.

Mississippi does not offer many lifelines to families who fall onto hard times. One of the few is Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the cash assistance program created in Congress’s bipartisan welfare reform legislation of 1996.

Contrary to popular belief, TANF is not an “entitlement” that goes to everyone living in poverty. Of the 720,000 Mississippians beneath the poverty line, fewer than 20,000 receive assistance from TANF. Two-thirds of the recipients are children whose parents are subject to strict work requirements and time limits.

TANF is designed to provide a last resort for the state’s poorest families. It will not lift them out of poverty – maximum benefits only provide about $170 a month for a family of three – but can mean the difference between making rent or facing eviction.

However, following the lead of other conservative states, Mississippi’s lawmakers decided to place another barrier between needy families and the modest support that TANF has to offer. Since August 2014, all of Mississippi’s TANF applicants have been forced to submit to a drug screening before receiving a single dollar of assistance.

Proponents claim that they are helping those suffering from addiction, but there is no evidence to suggest that TANF recipients are more likely than the general population to use drugs. There is also no evidence that public funds were being used to purchase drugs. The slew of states with similar laws had only turned up a handful of positive drug tests. Nevertheless, the drug screening mandate passed the Legislature with large majorities and was signed enthusiastically by Governor

The Results

August 2014 to April 2015

• Total Number of Applicants who completed SASSI questionnaire: 5,578
• Total Identified as High Likelihood for Substance Abuse: 72
• Total who submitted to a Drug Test: 72
• Total Number who Tested Positive for Drugs: 8
• Total Number who Tested Negative for Drugs: 64
• Total Number of False Positives: 1
• Total Number Receiving Sanction or Denied benefits due to Drug Testing Non-Compliance:“NOT TRACKING”