@djc and you still won’t do a great job. states can’t do a great job. adjudicating tradeoffs based on fine-grained very local information is precisely what states are bad at, the sphere where we want to minimize the degree of state involvement. an application form can force you to guesstimate your forward income (creating deadweight potential perjury risks if you misestimate too badly). it will never know that your father-in-law is ill and you send thousands of dollars to help. 5/