From multiple real-world implementations it appears.
So you're just going to send those test strips to the welfare recipients and ask them to pee on it and send back the results? No, you need a qualified tester/handler for test. Those people cost money. So now we're at significantly more than 20$.
How often are you going to test the recipients? once a year, once a week? That's going to add up.
As of 2012 52.2 million people were receiving some form of government assistance.
If it cost 1$ per test, per person and you tested each person 3 times a year you would be looking at 150 million per year for this drug testing.
Catching 4% of recipients would gross 5 billion.
And I guarantee it will cost more than 1$ per test, once you're paying the salaries of the testers, the receptionists, procurement, storage, disposal, data entry and maintenence, office supplies, rental fees, insurance, everything else that goes along with setting up a federally-mandated nation-wide program.
It doesn't take an entire team. The welfare office already has a receptionist. What procurement, storage, disposal, data entry, etc etc etc? You come in, piss in a cup, have it tested, then throw it in the toilet. You're talking out your ass here....
So yeah, it will be fucking expensive. In states that have implement drug-testing for welfare recipients they have caught less than a handful of people using drugs.
Yes, it will cost a lot. It will save orders of magnitude more.
You think you are going to catch so many drug-users nation-wide and kick them off welfare that you are going to save hundreds of millions of dollars each year?
See above math
That's assuming you go with a one-strike no appeal rule which will never fly in court. There will need to be a challenge/appeal system, B-samples, etc... which will cost even more fucking money.
The recipient would pay for an appeal, refundable if negative.
You don't have a fucking clue, jesus fucking christ.
You didn't bother to do simple math and Im the idiot?
Let's get government spending under control but the problem isn't poor people taking too much money FFS.