Write On, Downtown issue 10, 2016

Mainstreamed Middle-Class August of 2011. However, Florida’s testing results revealed that only 2.6% of the TANF welfare recipients tested positive for substances not tolerated by the program, leaving over 97% of the recipients drug free (Alvarez, 2012). Similarly, in Utah, only 12 out of 466 TANF recipients tested positive for drugs (Delaney, 2013). This baffled me, because I too was under the impression that my hard earned money went to support the poor’s drug activities. However, as it turns out, those on welfare serve as scapegoats for the disappearance of a large amount of money. This deprived population find themselves falling victim to the stigma of drug use that was created out of fear and placed on an easy target (Katz, 2013). As this research shows, those on welfare are merely in pursuit of the American Dream, just like you and me. So then it must be asked, if our money isn’t going towards the welfare population’s substance abuse habits, where is it actually ending up?

An elite group of individuals commonly referred to as the One Percent exists in America. This select population makes up the highest financial quartile in America and has an average starting income of $654,000 for a family of four (Sahadi, 2013, para. 5).

However, some One Percent families’ earnings reach well over this starting point and soar in to the millions (“Who exactly”, 2012, para. 3). In 2008, their average income was a whopping $1.2 million (“Who exactly”, 2012, para. 3). This wealthy group’s money is just as taxable as yours and mine is; however, they find themselves entitled to larger tax breaks than the rest of us. In 2011, the One Percent benefited from roughly 17% of all major tax cuts offered while those in the middle quartile, who earn a substantially lower income, only received 13% of the tax relief (Sahadi, 2013, para. 5, para. 8). The One Percent earns more than enough money to feel comfortable but somehow manages to get taxed less than those whose bank account balances may be considered well below where they should be. Why is it fair for the rich to sail around the world in yachts worry free while we, the middle-class, have to put in extra hours to be able to put food on the table?

You and I find ourselves falling victim to the income inequality in America and blame the impoverished for our lack of revenue out of fear. We have been trained to think that welfare recipients abuse substances and that they are the reason why the dollar amount on our paychecks isn’t as large as it should be. However, condemning the deprived for our insufficient funds isn’t an idea of our own creation. This scapegoat scheme trickles down from the One Percent and manages to go undetected by us. Some wealthy genius casually swinging a golf club came up with the idea to blame the defenseless poor for the rich gaming the system.

The One Percent’s value is 70 times greater than the value of the middle class because this 1% of the population control just under 50 percent of the currency in America (Dunn, 2012, p. 1). This means that there is about a $577,000 earning difference between the highest average One Percent family of four’s income and the lowest average middle-class family of four’s income (Sahadi, 2013). Our chances of falling into poverty is not threatened by the poor but rather by these rich. Instead of looking down and blaming the class below us, we need to look up.

Forcing the welfare population to take drug tests only leads us further into the web of lies that the One Percent has taught us to full heartily believe in. We should not pursue the poor for taking money that they actually need and rely on, but should instead go after the wealthy for abusing our dollars to purchase designer purses and other unneeded items.

Drug testing the welfare population should not be done because drug use among the 55