06/14/2026
🤠 THE TEXAS MIRACLE
22 FACTS Republicans don’t want you to see. All verified. All from 2024–2026 data.
🏥 #1 — UNINSURED: #1 WORST IN AMERICA
Texas had the nation’s highest uninsured rate at 16.7% in 2024, while Massachusetts had the lowest at 2.8%.  Among working-age adults, the uninsured rate ranged from a low of 3.7% in Massachusetts to a high of 21.6% in Texas — more than 1 in 5. 
👶 #2 — UNINSURED KIDS: #1 WORST IN AMERICA
In 2024, 13.6% of Texas children lacked health insurance — roughly double the national rate of 6.0%.  Almost 1 in 4 uninsured children in the entire country is a Texan. 
🏥 #3 — COUNTIES WITH NO INSURANCE: WORST IN AMERICA
Of 810 U.S. counties ranked for lowest health insurance enrollment in 2024, 19 of the 20 worst are in Texas. 
🤰 #4 — WOMEN’S HEALTH: 50TH OUT OF 51
Texas ranked 50th overall in the Commonwealth Fund’s 2024 Scorecard on Women’s Health and Reproductive Care — only Mississippi ranked worse.  Maternal mortality in Texas rose 56% from 2019 to 2022, compared to just 11% nationally. 
💧 #5 — DRINKING WATER: #1 FOR TOXIC CHEMICALS
More than 700 Texas water systems — serving 8.6 million people — had chemical byproduct levels above the EPA’s legal limit, the most of any state in the nation. 
💨 #6 — AIR POLLUTION: MULTIPLE CITIES IN TOP 10 WORST
Houston ranked #7 worst in the U.S. for high-ozone days and #8 for annual particle pollution; Dallas ranked #10 for ozone. Eighteen Texas counties received an F grade for air quality. 
⚡ #7 — POWER GRID: GRADED D− (AMONG NATION’S WORST)
ERCOT received a D− grade for transmission planning in 2025, ranking Texas among the worst-performing regions in the country, with an isolated grid that can’t import power during emergencies.  2024 saw the second-highest level of customer outages in the last 15 years. 
🏗️ #8 — WASTEWATER & LEVEES: GRADED D−
Texas’s 2025 infrastructure report card gave both its wastewater and levee systems a D− — the lowest grades in the entire assessment. 
📚 #9 — READING SCORES: LOWEST IN STATE HISTORY
Texas’s 4th-grade reading scores fell to their lowest point since 1994, and 8th-grade reading fell to the lowest level in the history of the exam. 
📉 #10 — 8TH-GRADE MATH: ALL-TIME LOW
Texas 8th-grade math ranking dropped nine spots to 34th nationally — an all-time low — with 44% of students scoring below “Basic.” 
📖 #11 — LITERACY GAP
43% of Texas 4th graders and 39% of 8th graders fail to reach NAEP’s “Basic” skills threshold — increases over 2022 in both grades. 
💰 #12 — POVERTY: ABOVE NATIONAL AVERAGE
Texas’s poverty rate of 13.4% sits above the national average, with high poverty in metros like Houston (14.4%) and San Antonio (14.2%). 
🍽️ #13 — FOOD INSECURITY: #1 IN AMERICA
For the second consecutive year, Texas leads the nation in hunger, surpassing California, with nearly 5.4 million people who are food insecure — one-third of them children. 
👧 #14 — CHILD WELL-BEING: NEAR BOTTOM
Texas ranks 43rd in economic security and education and 48th in health for children, according to the 2024 Texas Kids Count report. 
💵 #15 — LOW-WAGE WORKERS: MOST IN AMERICA
Texas has the most low-wage workers in the nation — nearly 5.1 million people earning under $20/hour  — while keeping the minimum wage at the federal floor of $7.25, unchanged since 2009.
🏡 #16 — PROPERTY TAXES: AMONG THE HIGHEST IN AMERICA
Texas homeowners pay a median $4,232 in property taxes in 2026 — the 7th highest in the nation — at an effective rate of 1.49%.  (Note: a separate Census-based study ranks Texas 9th by effective rate — either way, top 10.)
⚖️ #17 — A RIGGED TAX CODE
Because Texas has no income tax, it leans on the most regressive taxes — and according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Texas has the 7th most regressive tax system in the country, meaning the lowest-income Texans pay the highest share of their earnings in state and local taxes. 
🏠 #18 — HOUSING: 306,000 HOMES SHORT
Texas was 306,000 homes short of what it needed as of 2021, with the greatest shortage in homes middle-income buyers can afford.  In early 2025, home sales fell across every price tier except million-dollar properties, which surged 11.4%. 
🏚️ #19 — TRAFFIC & ROADS: BOTTOM TIER
Texas ranked 38th in urban arterial pavement conditions and 40th in traffic congestion nationally, with Texans spending roughly 46 hours per year stuck in traffic. 
🏘️ #20 — HOMELESSNESS: AMONG HIGHEST POPULATIONS
Texas is one of just seven states accounting for 64% of all homelessness in America, driven by a lack of affordable housing. 
☠️ #21 — POLLUTION OVERALL: #1 MOST POLLUTED
A 2025 study analyzing EPA data found Texas had the nation’s most toxic air and most polluted water, with 66% of its population exposed to unsafe air quality and over 15,000 water violations. 
⚖️ #22 — CORRUPTION: INDICTED, IMPEACHED — AND NOW THE GOP SENATE NOMINEE
Texas AG Ken Paxton was indicted on felony securities fraud, reported to the FBI by his own staff for bribery, and impeached by his own party on 20 articles before the Texas Senate acquitted him.  He is now the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate. 
“No income tax. 7th-highest property taxes. #1 in the nation for uninsured and hungry. This is the Texas miracle — built for the wealthy, billed to everyone else. 🤠”
