I have worked as an Employment Specialist directly for the state welfare system for nearly a decade. The majority of our recipients are educated women who left the workforce to care for children. Very few recipients, at least in my state NJ, are drug users. It is a waste of time and money as well as insulting to individuals just trying to gain financial independence in a system rigged against their success.
A single adult cannot earn more than $618 too be eligible for assistance! $618!? A human cannot survive on that. A mother with zero income and of 3 school age children receives about $483… Read more per month in cash and $550 in food stamps. In exchange she will be required to "work" at a locally contracted nonprofit business 40 hours per week without being paid a paycheck. Divide 483 in cash assistance (tanf) by those hours (40/week times 4.33 weeks per month= 173.2 hours) to see she "earns" that cash assistance by being compensated $2.78 per hour! For each hour of labor she performs at a contracted CWEP worksite she receives $2.73 in cash benefits! That is nowhere near minimum wage. Even if one calculates in the SNAP amount of $550, she earns $5.96 per hour. That same women must pay 30% of that $483 ($140.40) to the awarding agency for rent if she's so lucky to receive a rental subsidy. One one month working full-time at a contracted CWEP worksite she will receive $328 in cash and $550 in food stamps to support herself and 3 children, pay her utilities, transportation to and from the children's schools and her assigned CWEP worksite, back to the schools to pickup her children then back home. 5 days per week.
The system is impossible. It becomes even worse if the women receives child support bc the women is only allowed to keep $100 per month of that support and the state intercepts the remainder to "offset" the fact she needs help. When this occurs the state actually makes money off of her participation in TANF bc the amount of child support awarded is almost always greater than the TANF grant of $483. More disturbing so the fact the women would still be required to perform the 40 hours of work per week!!
The system is terrible and stressful and helps very little. Drug testing is going to make it even worse. And if you're going to test the recipients you'd have to test the staff and if that happens then they'll be very few workers to even process applications or oversee client cases. Just saying.
