Building on P-EBT benefits created in response to the coronavirus, President Biden proposed a vast expansion of the USDA’s summer food program on Wednesday that would be available to the 22 million children who eat school meals for free or at a reduced price. The White House also called for expanding a program that provides free school meals to all children in high-poverty neighborhoods.
It also asked Congress to remove a ban on food stamps for people convicted of drug violations. The prohibition was enacted as part of welfare reform in 1996, when harsh penalties were a part of the war on drugs. The administration says the ban “jeopardizes nutrition security and poses a barrier to re-entry into the community.” All of the changes were part of Biden’s American Families Plan.
At present, the summer food program is the runt of school nutrition, feeding fewer than 3 million low-income children — or one-seventh the daily volume of the school lunch program — due to rules that require children to eat at a central location and offer the meals only in areas with a concentration of eligible children.
The White House said it would put $25 billion into a permanent Summer EBT program available to all children who qualify for free or reduced-price meals at school. It would be similar to the Pandemic EBT program, which helps low-income families buy food for their children when schools are closed. The USDA extended P-EBT on April 20 to cover the summer months with assistance of $375 per child. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called it “a first-of-its-kind, game-changing intervention to reduce child hunger.” The USDA previously ran a summer EBT pilot that served 300,000 children.
Some $17 billion would go into an expansion of the Community Eligibility Provision, which allows schools in high-poverty areas to serve free meals to all students, rather than the usual approach of checking with parents to certify who is eligible for free meals and who must pay. At present, 70 percent of eligible schools take part in CEP. To encourage participation, the administration said it would offer a higher reimbursement rate for each meal served in the highest-poverty districts and lower the threshold for joining CEP. Both steps would be based on the percentage of students who live in SNAP households.
“Any effort to enable more schools to participate in CEP will increase access to healthy school meals in needy communities,” said Reggie Ross, president of the School Nutrition Association, which speaks for school food directors. The SNA advocates universal free school breakfast and lunch, a much broader step than the one proposed by Biden.
The White House also asked for $1 billion to launch a healthy school food initiative. Schools that exceed USDA guidelines for school foods — more fruit, vegetables, and whole grains and less salt, fat, and sugar — would receive a larger reimbursement per meal.
The anti-hunger Food Research and Action Center said it was “thrilled that the Biden administration has heeded the calls of anti-hunger organizations to address the growing hunger gaps in child nutrition driven by the Covid-19 pandemic.” Restoring SNAP eligibility for people convicted of drug felonies “provides equal access to food assistance for those who are re-entering into society,” it said.
Most states still enforce the 1996 prohibition, which applied to SNAP and welfare payments, in full or in part, reported HuffPost, although welfare reform allowed states to restore eligibility if they wished. HuffPost quoted Grant Smith of the Drug Policy Alliance as saying the Biden proposal was “a really big deal. This policy is still affecting a lot of families.”