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While Gov. Greg Abbott has decided that Texas will opt out of all federal unemployment assistance programs, making it more difficult for unemployed Texans to make ends meet, he will help keep families fed.
A few days after Abbott's office announced that jobless Texans would stop receiving the additional $300 federal benefit after June 26, Abbott's office also announced the state will still be accepting about $2.5 billion in pandemic food benefits for Texas families.
The latter announcement, issued May 20, came after the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved a second round of federal Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) food benefits for Texas families with children who lost access to free or reduced-price school meals during the still-ongoing pandemic.
"Thank you to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for approving this second round of pandemic food benefits for Texas families," Abbott said in the May 20 announcement. "These additional benefits will continue to help Texans provide food for their families."
This second round of P-EBT will provide more than $2.5 billion in benefits to about 3.7 million eligible Texan children, significantly more than $1 billion in food benefits provided to more than 3 million children last summer, according to the announcement.
"These additional food benefits are a lifeline and will go a long way to help many Texas families put nutritious food on the table," Texas Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Cecile Erwin Young said in the announcement. "We've worked closely with our many state and federal partners and we're thankful to get this program off the ground so we can help people during this challenging time."
In the earlier announced, Abbott informed the U.S. Dept. of Labor that Texas will stop providing federal unemployment benefits that more than 300,000 Texans have depended upon through the pandemic.
Abbott's May 17 announcement also means the end of pandemic federal assistance through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program that provided jobless aid to gig economy workers, the self-employed people and others who historically have not received jobless benefits. That assistance had been extended through the end of September but Abbott's announcement means those jobless will also see the end of that help on June 26.
Almost 345,000 were receiving assistance through the PUA program as of April 30, the Texas Tribune reported.
Abbott cited Texas Workforce Commission data that showed almost 45% of posted jobs offer wages greater than $15.50 per hour and said in a Twitter post that unemployed Texans no longer need assistance.
"There are nearly 60% more jobs open in Texas today than there was in February 2020, making these unemployment benefits no longer necessary," Abbott said in his Twitter post.