After the state missed the Jan. 1 deadline, lawmakers still have time to approve administrative costs before applying for $400 million in federal summer meal assistance.

Texas officials acknowledged some errors after they stripped Medicaid coverage from more than 2 million people, most of them children. A ProPublica and Texas Tribune review of records shows that these mistakes and others were preventable.

More than 225,000 Texans could get turned away from the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children next year unless Congress allocates more money for the program, advocates and the White House warns. But partisan divisions are obscuring the path forward on government funding.

An influx of highly educated people from other states helped shift the state’s economic fortune. But in many parts of Texas, residents are struggling as jobs dry up.

A requirement to work 80 hours a month, starting in September, could affect 44,000 Texans over age 49. Meanwhile, attention in Congress shifts to the farm bill’s significant impact on food stamp policy.

A new state law increases what SNAP applicants’ vehicles can be worth before they’re disqualified for federal food assistance. But most states don’t take car values into consideration at all.

The value of a household’s vehicles disqualified nearly 55,000 people seeking federal food assistance in 2022. House Bill 1287 increases the threshold of car values that lead to SNAP applicants being denied aid.

Governor Greg Abbott announced Thursday that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) is providing more than $344.1 million in emergency Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food benefits for the month of January. The allotments are expected to help about 1.6 million Texas households.

The USDA Food and Nutrition Service announced in May that it would expand its definition of sexual discrimination to include gender identity and sexual orientation. Paxton and other attorneys general are suing in response.

The pressures pushing up costs for consumers are also hitting agencies trying to combat hunger, making it hard to keep up with rising demand for their aid.

AUSTIN, Texas – Texas Health and Human Services will provide more than $168 million in emergency Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program food benefits to help people in the state during the COVID-19 response, Gov. HHS got federal approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide the maximum allowable number of SNAP benefits to recipients based on family size, according to a news release. Anyone receiving SNAP benefits is included. “SNAP, commonly referred to as the food stamp program, supplements the budget of the working poor. "The additional food subsidy announced today by Governor Abbott, although still supplemental, will help fill a portion of the financial gap created by the economic crisis resulting from this pandemic.