Millions Of Children Continue To Wait For Food Aid To Replace School Meals

As Congress continues to debate over the next stimulus bill, millions of low-income children in school have gone nearly a semester without getting money from the government to aid their families with groceries, even after the aid was authorized by Congress months ago.

Aid to replace free/subsidized meals that virtual students would not have access to during the pandemic was established in March by Congress. However, it wasn’t till the program was near its expiration date did the government decide to extend the benefits for the current school year.

It wasn’t until several weeks later did the USDA write guidelines for the states to issue out the funds. Now, as states wait on the USDA approval of their plans for handing out the money, hundreds of families have stopped receiving aid.

However, one program known as Pandemic-EBT has reportedly prevented millions of children from starvation. Every state participated in issuing $8 billion to families on “debit-like cards” as a replacement for the breakfast and lunch that they would have received at school, POLITICO mentioned.

The program provides households with just a little under $6 per child per day of school missed.

It was reported in July by the Brookings Institution that Pandemic-EBT “reduced food hardship for low-income households by about 30 percent, keeping nearly 3 million to 4 million children out of hunger.”

According to POLITICO, finding out how to distribute the funds has been somewhat problematic for the department because of the different learning models that schools are operating. Because some are hybrid, some are fully remote, and some are in-person, it has become challenging to determine what USDA officials “will and won’t allow states to do to get the money out without too much red tape.”

“Because extending P-EBT is a complex operational issue, USDA was careful to craft clear guidance to assist states in successfully submitting their plans after P-EBT extension was authorized,” a department spokesperson said in an email.

“Unlike the spring when all schools were closed for a period of time, the 2020-2021 school year is a very dynamic situation at the state, school, and student levels,” the spokesperson said, noting that the department solicited a lot of feedback from states and others as it worked on guidance.

Only Massachusetts has been approved for the distribution of P-EBT aid for this school year by the USDA.

“P-EBT has proven to be an effective tool during the Covid-19 pandemic to help families with students learning at home directly purchase healthy, culturally appropriate food,” Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance Commissioner Amy Kershaw said in a statement. “P-EBT also brings critical resources into our local communities, supporting food retailers and their employees.”

State officials expect to begin releasing payment for the previous two months by the end of December and then flow monthly.

As for the remaining states, there is no timetable for when they will be approved.

“We know families are in crisis. We know they need access to these benefits urgently. We also know that it’s a more complicated approach this year,” said Crystal FitzSimons, director of school and out-of-school time programs at the Food Research & Action Center.