In Texas, it has grown increasingly difficult for poor families who qualify for welfare to receive any money from the state, reports The Texas Tribune.
According to some experts, there is so much bureaucratic red tape blocking indigent families from accessing the social safety net that many low-income Texans are left without the help they are due. The Texas Assistance for Needy Families program, better known as TANF, has been steadily shrinking for nearly two decades.
However, in that time, Texas poverty rates have largely remained consistent.
For the fewer and fewer Texans who do qualify for the program, the requirements to access the money grow stricter every year. One issue: many inexperienced state workers don’t seem to know how to navigate the state’s labyrinthine bureaucracy to get money to the families who need it.