I have worked since I was 15 years old. I have paid taxes from my paycheck for every job I’ve held from 15 to 24. But before I got that paycheck, I was required to pee in a cup.
Yeah, I said it; pee in a cup. According to a survey taken by the Society for Human Resource Management, 84 percent of employers require preemployment drug screenings and another 39 percent drug test randomly during employment.
Never once have I had an issue partaking in a preemployment urinalysis. It is the employers constitutional right to do so, and I am OK with that. So if I have to partake in a drugscreening to work and pay taxes, why would a welfare or unemployment recipient be able to receive my hardearned tax dollars every month without the same requirements? It’s easy to say there are an unprecedented amount of individuals and families receiving government assistance, unemployment or both. With unemployment rates at an all-time high, it almost seems there are more people without jobs than with jobs.
Maybe it’s because of my age or view of the current generation, but I see more enticing benefits for not working than those attained for getting up everyday to wait tables or ring sale items for unappreciative customers at a mere eight bucks an hour.
Table bussers and cashiers, bank tellers and maintenance workers, burger flippers and call center retrievers, the ones with the dead-end jobs and not the free money appearing in their mail boxes every other week, are the reason welfare and unemployment checks still exist. They get their checks at the end of a long workweek only to find a huge percentage removed by Big Brother to pay the wages of the guy down the hall who smokes pot and plays Xbox all day.
Am I the only one who sees a problem with this? Unemployment, cash aid, food stamps and housing subsidies are provided for those unwilling or unable to work. Honestly, it’s sickening.
As a mother, a wife and a student with a full-time job, I am offended. Why would the mother who has more children than she can afford stay home, pay a fraction of the cost for her apartment and receive free grocery money via a convenient little debit card on my dime while I slave away to put food on the table?
Where is the logic in this? Not to mention the homeless man on the corner who conveniently fails to mention on his sign that his Supplementary Security Income check this month was more than I made working 64 hours in the last two weeks, but he needs change to buy his next bottle.
Forgive me if I am going to extremes here, but how can I put any of this lightly? My daughter — who is now 3 years old — went the first nine months of her life without immunizations or healthcare because when I applied for Medi-Cal, they told me I made “too much money” and would have to find other means for getting her doctor visits covered. At the time I was a part-time manager making less than $10 an hour and barely pulling in enough money to pay for rent, and I qualified for nothing.
The woman next to me in the dirty welfare office with four kids and fewer teeth than my infant was awarded Cash Aid, Medi-Cal and food stamps in the amount of more than $400 per month. She, of course, had no tax-paying job — and I know this because she was so proud of the way she cheated the system, she had to fill me in on her entire life story, which included prostitution (hence the four children) and a severe crack cocaine addiction.
So I think it is a fair request that California require drug tests for welfare and unemployment applicants. Florida passed a similar law in June requiring any welfare applicant to submit a urinalysis that they are required to pay for. If the test is negative, the state will reimburse the applicant for the cost of the test. If it draws a positive result, the applicant is denied benefits for one full year and must test again if they reapply.
If the second drug test is failed, the applicant is denied benefits for three years. The state saves roughly $120 per month per failed applicant and has so far had a 2 percent positivity rate. It sounds like a small number, but Florida has less available benefits and fewer applicants than California, and has not yet implemented a drug test requirement for unemployment. Other states, including Oklahoma, Kentucky, Alabama and Louisiana are following closely in Florida’s footsteps with plans to implement similar statutes for drug testing federal aid applicants. It’s time we face facts and take a real look at the people – living off our tax dollars.
If we have to pee to work, they should have to pee not to work.
—Heather Mathis is a journalism junior.
