# Plain Language Summary: Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients Act

This bill would require drug testing as a condition for receiving several major government assistance programs. If you're an adult applying for or receiving welfare benefits, food stamps, or housing assistance, you'd need to pass drug screening and testing before getting help—and could lose benefits if you test positive.

Here's how it would work in practice. For welfare and food assistance, states would first check if you've been arrested for a drug-related offense in the past five years. If you have, you'd need to pass a drug test before receiving any benefits. If you haven't been arrested for drugs, you'd take a substance abuse screening (basically a questionnaire or interview). If that screening says you're at low risk, you're approved. But if it flags you as high-risk, you'd need to pass a drug test to get benefits. The state would pay for all testing—you wouldn't be charged. For housing assistance through public housing or Section 8 vouchers, the same rules would apply.

If you test positive for drugs, you'd lose benefits for at least 12 months, or longer if you haven't completed a treatment program or tested negative again. The bill gives you a path back: complete drug treatment and pass a follow-up test, and your benefits could resume. However, if you're part of a family receiving assistance, other family members' benefits wouldn't be affected by your positive test—though for housing, the assistance would be reduced based on how many family members passed their tests.

States and housing agencies that don't enforce these requirements would face 15 percent cuts to their federal funding. The bill would take effect about eight months after being signed into law, giving states time to set up testing programs.

Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients Act

Rouzer, David

Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients Act This bill requires the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and specified public housing programs&nbsp;to subject&nbsp;individuals to substance-abuse screening and to deny benefits for individuals who test positive for a controlled substance.