Urine or You’re Out: Racialized Economic Threat and the Determinants of Welfare Drug Testing Policy in the United States, 2009–2015

Abstract

ABSTRACTSince 2009, fifteen U.S. states have passed some sort of restrictive drug-testing program for welfare-applicants and/or suspected recipients. Sociologists are often concerned with identifying the conditions under which states implement a particular social policy. As such, we ask what conditions separate states that have implemented drug testing policies for welfare applicants from those that have not. Using discrete-time event history analysis models we test several existing theories of policy creation, namely group threat and partisan politics. Results indicate that declines in white labor force participation, and possessing a Republican governor, are positively associated with the passage of welfare drug testing policy. Contrary to explanations given by political operatives, neither state fiscal conditions, nor welfare caseloads, are statistically associated with passage. Our results re-affirm the association between racial and economic threat and reactionary social policy, as well as underscore the importance of political power in implementing such policy. This deepens and broadens our understanding of the longstanding American animosity towards welfare and welfare recipients, and, most importantly, the ongoing shift towards disciplinary poverty management in the United States, even in the face of a substantial economic downturn.