Texas first in nation for food insecurity for third year in a row<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\nFederal overhaul shocks outdated system<\/p>\n
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law in July 2025, heavily restructured SNAP eligibility and funding across the country. The law\u2019s changes included:<\/p>\n
Making several immigrant groups, including many refugees and asylees, ineligible for SNAP benefits.\u00a0
\nAdding work requirements for people ages 60-64 and parents with children ages 14-17.\u00a0
\nRequiring a state to fund a proportion of its SNAP program based on its \u201cerror rate,\u201d how much recipients were underpaid or overpaid in a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The error rate-based funding is completely new. Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, said that policy change is likely prompting state agencies, including the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, to take extra time in verifying applicant eligibility.<\/p>\n
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\u201cNew SNAP mandates require a thorough review of each case to ensure program integrity and accuracy,\u201d state agency spokesperson Jennifer Ruffcorn wrote in an email to the Dallas Morning News. \u201cHHSC will continue supporting eligible Texas families as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Texas\u2019 application system is also \u201creally antiquated\u201d because of its reliance on manual data entry, Forester said. Shifting rules and higher stakes for accuracy are straining an already tedious application system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The legislature invested heavily in software improvements for the application process last year, which Forester called \u201cgreat.\u201d But the upgraded system could take eight years to roll out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the meantime, we can\u2019t have Texas families waiting three months just for an eligibility worker to touch their application,\u201d Forester said.<\/p>\n
Texas SNAP enrollment drops<\/p>\n
As the SNAP application backlog skyrocketed, the program has also stopped covering hundreds of thousands of Texans.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The number of SNAP cases in Texas fell from about 1.63 million to 1.33 million households between September 2025 and August 2026. Dallas County\u2019s decrease accounted for about 10% of that drop \u2014 around 30,000 households who were no longer on SNAP.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That drop is strange, Cole said, since rising food insecurity would in theory push more people to apply for SNAP. She\u2019s concerned the One Big Beautiful Bill Act\u2019s new eligibility rules are pushing people who need help off of SNAP coverage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAre they getting off the program because they don\u2019t need assistance and they\u2019ve found work, or are they facing barriers that are forcing them off the program?\u201d Cole asked. \u201cWe think the latter is true, because it doesn\u2019t match up with what we\u2019re seeing in our lines.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aside from changes to eligibility, Forester said many Texas families with mixed immigration status have stopped trying to obtain benefits for fear of drawing too much government scrutiny. The paperwork required as part of applications could be another factor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Food banks step up<\/p>\n
Food banks around Texas have reported higher demand for services, Cole said. In North Texas too, local pantries have experienced more community members needing help, said Elizabeth Vela, social services assistance team manager at North Texas Food Bank. Annual charitable meal distribution increased from 116 million to 119 million meals between July 2024 and June 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n
D-FW organizations have also received more donations from neighbors recently, Vela said. Many local pantries are considering changing hours or using \u201cAmazon locker\u201d style drop-offs to adjust to demand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For now, North Texas Food Bank has the capacity to meet increasing demand, according to Jeff Smith, the organization\u2019s communications director. But private charitable meal donations were never meant to supplant a program like SNAP, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For now, more families are having to choose between food and other necessities.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s really just making those tough decisions in that moment,\u201d Vela said. \u201cAnd finding what\u2019s going to best fit their need.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Community members who need food assistance can visit ntfb.org\/food-assistance\/<\/a> for information on nearby pantries and mobile food delivery services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Volunteers representing Ohio State University and the University of Miami pack food at the North Texas Food Bank…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-432057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}