another excerpt, this one on food assistance (it's a long article and the one-family human interest story is used as a hook to present points like this throughout):

She was there to finalize her application for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, and had thought there would be a helpful social worker on the other side of the door. Instead she found a documents kiosk and a clerk named Courtney with blue eyeglasses and metal gauges through her stretched earlobes. The waiting room was crowded with families, people coughing, babies crying.

“Put healthy food on the table,” a sign on the wall said. Another: “Stop Medicaid Fraud.”

“What are you trying to do today?” Courtney asked.

“I don’t know; I’ve never been here. I just want to do my SNAP,” Anne said. “Do I need to give my federal tax return or my state tax return or what?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Courtney said.

Anne scanned her pay stubs from her various jobs, which last year earned her $5,330. Then the Schedule F tax form that showed net farm income of -$12,979.

“Is there anything I can do today to find out if I get approved?” she asked.

They’d get back to her in 24 to 48 hours, Courtney said. Or by Monday, someone else said later in the day when she called in to check. Or in three weeks, when she’d be notified in the mail, a third person said.

Anne was skeptical about whether she would be approved for benefits anyway.

An estimated 197,000 farmers, farmworkers, fishermen and forestry workers use SNAP, according to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, but farmers say they sometimes find it difficult to qualify because of complicated rules governing self-employment income. And the Trump administration has long-term plans to tighten SNAP eligibility for many.

But Anne had hoped to get her benefits before Christmas, which might free up a little extra money for simple gifts for the kids, like gloves or a dinosaur toy for her youngest, Levi, 6. Now it didn’t look like that was happening.

“This sucks,” she said.

She was back on the street in less than 20 minutes, far faster than expected, regretting paying $1 for two hours of street parking.