States decline food aid for kids
GOP-led Nebraska, Iowa fault summer EBT program. Others have yet to sign up.
DES MOINES — Iowa will not participate next summer in a federal program that gives $40 per month to each child in a low-income family to help with food costs while school is out, state officials have announced.
The state has notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture that it won’t take part in the 2024 Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer Program for Children, or Summer EBT, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education said in a news release Friday.
Such “federal COVID-era cash benefit programs are not sustainable and don’t provide long-term solutions for the issues impacting children and families. An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic,” Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said in the news release.
She added, “If the Biden Administration and Congress want to make a real commitment to family wellbeing, they should invest in already existing programs and infrastructure at the state level and give us the flexibility to tailor them to our state’s needs.”
States that participate in the federal program must cover half of the administrative costs, which would be an estimated $2.2 million in Iowa, the news release says.
Some state lawmakers, including Democratic Sen. Izaah Knox of Des Moines, voiced their opposition to the decision.
“It’s extremely disappointing that the Reynolds administration is planning to reject federal money that could put food on the table for hungry Iowa kids,” Knox said in a statement. “This cruel and short-sighted decision will have real impacts on children and families in my district and communities all across Iowa.”
Officials in neighboring Nebraska also announced last week that the state would not take part in Summer EBT, which would cost it about $300,000 annually in administrative costs, the Lincoln Journal Star reported.
“In the end, I fundamentally believe that we solve the problem, and I don’t believe in welfare,” Nebraska Republican Gov. Jim Pillen told the Journal Star on Friday.
But Nebraska will continue participating in the federal Summer Food Service Program, which combines programming like reading, physical activity and nutrition education with food assistance, according to the Journal Star. Pillen said the state wants to help children when they’re not at home.
“We just want to make sure that they’re out . ... at church camps. They’re at schools. They’re at 4-H. And we’ll take care of them at all of the places that they’re at [rather than] feeding a welfare system with food at home,” he said.
A bipartisan group of Nebraska lawmakers has urged the state to reconsider its decision on Summer EBT, saying the program would address the needs of vulnerable children and benefit the state economically, the Journal Star reported.
At least 18 states and territories and two tribal nations, the Cherokee Nation and the Chickasaw Nation, have said they plan to take part in Summer EBT in 2024, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. California, Arizona, Kansas, Minnesota, West Virginia, American Samoa and Guam are among those taking part.
States, territories and eligible tribal nations have until Jan. 1 to notify the Agriculture Department if they intend to take part in the program this summer.