The Biden Administration recently announced three executive actions that could significantly curb rising hunger in Texas, especially among children. Under these new orders:
- USDA will increase the value of the P-EBT program, which provides additional food-purchasing power to families whose children are missing free or reduced-price school meals while they are learning virtually at home. The administration estimates this action will provide a Texas family with three children more than $100 of additional support every two months.
- USDA will review its authority to boost SNAP benefits for the 40% of program participants who were left out of Congress’ initial effort to increase benefit levels because they were already receiving the maximum amount. Thousands of Texans experiencing severe financial struggles could be helped by this effort.
- USDA will begin the process of reviewing and updating the “thrifty food plan,” the market-basket analysis on which all SNAP benefit calculations are based.
As he signed these orders, President Bided stated: “This is the United States of America, and they are waiting to feed their kids. These are not the values of our nation. We cannot, will not let people go hungry.”
We couldn’t agree more. This pandemic has pushed more Texans than ever to access food assistance from food banks, public nutrition programs and other sources. These initial actions demonstrate how seriously the Biden Administration takes this crisis. Texas families are in dire need of additional food resources, and we applaud the White House for moving quickly to address their needs.