On Tuesday, Gov. Greg
Abbott also gave low-income families three more weeks to apply for a
$285-per-child credit — making up for school meals lost — for groceries.
By Robert T. Garrett 4:55 PM on Jul 28, 2020
AUSTIN — After a
brief period of time in which the Trump administration sought to end automatic
renewals of food stamp recipients, Texas has applied and again successfully won
federal permission to extend benefits for another six months to those scheduled
for renewals this month and next.
The move waives a
requirement to supply financial information and undergo an interview for
276,000 Texas households. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, the 1.4 million
families and individuals enrolled had to renew every six months.
In another
pandemic-related development affecting Texans’ ability to obtain food, Gov.
Greg Abbott on Tuesday announced a three-week extension of Friday’s deadline
for low-income families to apply for a one-time credit at grocery stores.
The Pandemic
Electronic Benefit Transfer program, or P-EBT, allows up to 3.6 million Texas
families $285 per child to buy food to replace the value of free or discounted
school meals that their children lost because of school closures caused by the
coronavirus outbreak.
So far, $790 million
has been issued to families of more than 2.8 million children, according to a release from Abbott’s office.
“I encourage eligible
Texans to apply for these benefits so they can continue to provide food for
their families during these challenging times,” he said in a written statement.
Rachel Cooper of the
progressive group Every Texan praised Abbott’s move to allow families until
Aug. 21 to apply.
“We were very
grateful the governor extended the deadline so that families can hear that
they’re eligible and still have time to apply,” said Cooper, senior analyst for
food policy at the group formerly known as the Center for Public Policy
Priorities.
“We think there’s a
huge group of kids out there whose families haven’t heard about the program,”
she said of P-EBT, a state-federal partnership that puts school meal money on a
debit card similar to those issued under the food stamp program.
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