“The actions taken today will make it easier for states to act quickly to ensure millions of children get the nutrition they need during this crisis,” says Davis.
Contact: Meredith Jorss, mjorss@strength.org
WASHINGTON, DC – This afternoon, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released new guidance for Pandemic EBT, the crisis relief program that provides a grocery benefit to parents with children who rely on meals served at school or day care.
This guidance provides new instruction to states on expanding benefits to younger children and will make sure that previously passed policies can operate more quickly and efficiently. It also makes the 15% Pandemic EBT benefit increase announced last week retroactive to the beginning of the school year.
The following is a statement from Lisa Davis, Share Our Strength senior vice president, on the action:
“We are delighted to continue to see the Biden administration take swift action to address our nation’s hunger crisis.
"The measures outlined by the USDA today will operationalize the important expansion of Pandemic EBT, giving clear guidance that will make it easier for states to quickly and efficiently expand Pandemic EBT to families with young children.
"Providing relief to these families is critical. The impact of the pandemic has been especially hard on families with young children. Research shows that more than 40% of parents with young children reported losing work or income since the beginning of the pandemic. And nearly a quarter of parents of young children (22.9%) say their family struggled with food insecurity.
"Hungry children have waited long enough. Each meal a child misses causes harm, and the longer we allow children to go hungry, the harder it will be for them to recover from this unprecedented crisis. The actions taken today will make it easier for states to act quickly to help millions of children get the nutrition they need to grow up healthy and strong, and we look forward to working with the White House, Secretary Tom Vilsack and the USDA on solutions in the weeks and months to come.”
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About No Kid Hungry
No child should go hungry in America. But in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, 1 in 4 kids could face hunger this year. No Kid Hungry is working to end childhood hunger by helping launch and improve programs that give all kids the healthy food they need to thrive. This is a problem we know how to solve. No Kid Hungry is a campaign of Share Our Strength, an organization committed to ending hunger and poverty.