Earlier this year, the Network blog featured a post concerning proposals at the state and federal level to implement TANF drug-testing requirements. The post mentioned a CLASP policy brief that highlighted the excessive costs of these drug-testing requirements, in addition to the negative impact such requirements would have on the economic security of countless families. While the Network has stated that such proposals are inherently problematic, lawmakers continue to advance such measures, most recently in the form of proposed drug-testing requirements for federal unemployment benefits.
 
Today in US News and World Report, Joy Moses - a Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress - penned an op-ed reiterating the double standards inherent to such drug-testing requirements. Moses writes that despite "stereotypes of Wall Street drug abuse," Congress did not require drug-testing for the employees of financial institutions receiving billions in government bailout funds. Moses also notes that measures policing those who rely on safety net programs are costly, and that there are certainly more constructive ways to invest in the economic security of mothers, families, and communities.

Policies that call for decreasing access to social safety net programs rarely confront the subsequent effects on those cut off from benefits. TANF time limits have led to the disconnection of around 1.5 million mothers from cash assistance programs across the country. Drug-testing requirements would likely have similar impacts on the economic security of countless beneficiaries who depend on the safety net. In a time of economic crisis, and record unemployment, drug-testing requirements for social services would have particularly damaging social costs.