Pa. families getting back lunch money
We don’t want to attach too much significance to something insiders might not consider all that meaningful, but we’re nonetheless encouraged by the Biden administration’s quick work on a request to direct more than $1 billion in federally funded benefits to low-income families of Pennsylvania school children.
The money will help those families cover the cost of breakfasts and lunches the children would have received for free — or at reduced prices — through the National School Lunch Program had COVID not necessitated the shift from in-person to remote instruction during the 2020-2021 school year.
Since the benefits are funded by the federal government, on March 2, Pennsylvania’s departments of human services and education submitted the Wolf administration’s so-called Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer plan for approval by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service.
Under the plan, the 928,000 or so Pennsylvania students who missed free or reduced school meals while learning remotely would be given $6.82 for every day they spent at home instead of at school.
Wolf’s office warned that it might not be until late spring that the distribution begins, estimating that the pre-loaded debit-style cards would not start arriving until about six weeks after the federal government approves the commonwealth’s plan.
But on Wednesday — eight days later — the FNS announced it had approved Pennsylvania’s plan to operate the P-EBT, putting the commonwealth on track to begin distributing funds in mid-April.
The speed at which the Biden administration acted sits in contrast to what happened in 2020. The Trump administration took more than two weeks to approve Pennsylvania’s spring 2020 plan and rejected the commonwealth’s fall 2020 plan to similarly distribute $42 million to the parents of about 330,000 children.
At the time, a story on WHYY. org quoted PA DHS Secretary Teresa Miller as saying the rejection, ostensibly on the grounds that it reached too few students, was “truly outrageous”. The story said that a USDA representative declined to further explain the government’s decision.
Instead it issued a statement from then-Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue that said, in part, “This is a challenging time for many Americans, but it is reassuring to see President Trump and our fellow Americans stepping up to the challenges facing us to make sure kids and those facing hunger are fed.”
For what it’s worth, Perdue gave Politico, ABC News and others a statement containing that exact quote months earlier when they were reporting critically about his department’s response to a farming crisis caused by COVID-19. The same quote was also used around that time in response to questions surrounding a program allowing food stamp users to use their benefits to pay for groceries online.
“Pennsylvania has prioritized food security for school communities throughout the pandemic,” said Acting Secretary of Education Noe Ortega in a statement on the importance of the P-EBT program. “The extension of the P-EBT benefit offers students and families continued access to resources that support their nutritional needs.”
We applaud the Wolf administration for seeking ways to combat hunger among our youngest citizens and the Biden administration for moving quickly to allow the funds to be used as Pennsylvania desires.
A brief compiled by the Food Research & Action Center, “based on numerous research findings,” bluntly says: “Children who do not eat breakfast at home or at school were less able to learn. Hunger can lead to lower math scores, attention problems, and behavior, emotional and academic problems. Furthermore, studies show that children who are consistently or often hungry are more likely to repeat a grade.”
Children in our communities should not be going hungry and we should all want them to learn as much as possible whether they’re in school or learning remotely.