Estevez-Abe (2008) states that “all other small welfare states simply require that individual applicants to public assistance fall under a certain income threshold”, but this is not entirely true. “ However, recent changes include] instructing welfare workers to avoid rejecting the demands of applicants without a concrete examination of their efforts towards seeking employment. Kakita states that “it is illegal under the current Public Assistance Law to refuse public assistance just because applicants have no stable address”.