“One of the biggest problems with many of America’s antipoverty programs — like Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment benefits, and housing vouchers — has nothing to do with the programs themselves but with how state and federal governments choose to administer them.

Put another way, there are millions of Americans who are eligible for existing welfare programs but still don’t receive all the benefits they are entitled to.

“We have a huge array of different programs with the primary goal of reducing poverty and increasing income and economic security among [people], especially among families with children,” said Pamela Herd, a social policy professor at the University of Michigan. “But the way we’ve implemented those programs is fundamentally undermining that goal.”

Read more at Vox.