Should Welfare Recipients Be Tested for Drugs? >
Participation in Welfare Is Not Voluntary
Drug testing welfare recipients is an intrusion into private lives not consistent with U.S. values
December 15, 2011
About Peter Cappelli:
Peter Cappelli is the George W. Taylor Professor of Management at the Wharton School and director of Wharton's Center for Human Resources. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass., served as senior adviser to the Kingdom of Bahrain for employment policy from 2003-2005, and since 2007 is a distinguished scholar of the Ministry of Manpower for Singapore.
The U.S. has always been distinctive in the priority that we give to individuals' rights and the associated limits that we place on the ability of government to intrude into private lives. That focus on liberty drives the answer to the question as to whether it is appropriate to allow drug testing for welfare recipients.
My colleague Christopher Kulp at the Santa Clara University notes that where personal liberty is a priority, consent becomes a central factor in determining how much intrusion is acceptable. And consent requires that we have a choice in the matter. Private organizations can impose most any requirements on their members they want in part because individuals are free to not join or to quit those organizations. Employers are allowed to test job applicants for drugs under the same logic: One need not apply for such jobs. Even in public schools, which students have a right to attend, we have decided that mandatory drug tests are acceptable for participation in sports and certain clubs because such participation is voluntary.
[Neither Left Nor Right Have Answer to Economic Conundrum.]
That takes us to the issue of drug testing welfare recipients. To be clear, the proposed legislation is not about criminal prosecution. Police already have the right to require drug tests where there is probable cause of relevant criminal activity, such as driving while impaired. The right would be broader here, allowing drug testing for welfare recipients short of that legal standard of probable cause.
Do welfare recipients effectively consent to receiving welfare? That depends on whether we think they have a genuine choice in the matter. If we think individuals choose to be on welfare by making decisions over which they have control--like whether to play football for your local high school--then drug testing could be appropriate. But if we think individuals end up on welfare because of circumstances largely beyond their control or because of poor decisions made in the distant past, resulting in no real alternatives, then it is more like the "your money or your life" choice offered by the bandit robbing you at gunpoint. Not a reasonable choice.
[GOP: Drug Tests for Unemployment Applicants.]
I believe the evidence indicates that most people on welfare, and all the children potentially affected, are not there by any reasonable sense of choice. They cannot really "consent" to a drug-testing requirement, and therefore it is an intrusion into private lives not consistent with U.S. values.
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- Other Arguments
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#11024223
Yes — We ought to provide aid on the basis of reciprocal obligation
ROBERT RECTOR, Senior Research Fellow in Domestic Policy at the Heritage Foundation
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#2729201
Yes — Why pay someone not to work when he has voluntarily taken himself out of the hiring pool?
JACK KINGSTON, U.S. Representative, Georgia's 1st District
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#3623177
Yes — We are overdue to renew welfare reform efforts and make additional gains
DAVID VITTER, U.S. Senator, Louisiana
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#4458257
Yes — Require drug testing only of welfare applicants with a history of substance abuse
LAWRENCE M. MEAD, Professor of Politics and Public Policy at New York University and Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute
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#6241611
No — Welfare recipients are no more likely to have drug problems than anyone else
MATTHEW BODIE, Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development at Saint Louis University School of Law
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#7281654
No — The assumption that people on public assistance use drugs at a higher rate than the general population is erroneous
VANITA GUPTA, Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union
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#8235620
No — Suggesting welfare recipients are worthy of suspicion unfairly singles the group out for disdain
JOY MOSES, Senior Policy Analyst with the Poverty and Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress
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#9251664
No — Drug testing perpetuates myths and scapegoats the unemployed
CHRISTINE L. OWENS, Executive Director of the National Employment Law Project
