According to Diana Whitmore Shenzhenbach of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, about 11% of adults said in July that eating sometimes or too often in their homes was not enough, up from 3.7% in 2019. The proportion of adults with children in this situation in July was more than 14%, much higher than last year.
These benefits, which the U.S. More than half were distributed to school-age children in the spring, amounting to between $ 250 and 4 50,450 per student, depending on how long his or her school was closed.
Now that the new school year has begun, at least nine states have joined the U.S. The Department of Agriculture has approved funding to replace meals served in August and September. Other states are awaiting approval.
But the program ends Sept. 30, so lawyers are pushing lawmakers to include funding for the rest of the school year in the annual government spending bill currently under discussion. As well, hybrid education programs need to be made in accordance with the rules of the program, to allow children to participate.
This made a difference in additional funding last spring. According to an estimate by The Hamilton Project, an economic policy initiative of the Brookings Institution, during the week after the benefits were paid, the share of children getting enough to eat decreased by more than 30%. Approximately to one million children lose their appetite, the authors said.
“It’s not an extra trip,” Whitmore Shenzhenbach said. “It just means that the more trips you take to the grocery store, the more money you get to spend.”
The epidemic-EBT program is helping 7 billion and 10 billion dollars in spring. But those costs are “minimal,” and the program takes the place of some meals that weren’t served at school, said Stacey Dean, vice president of food aid policy at the Left Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Meals were scarce in spring and summer.
School meal program
U.S. The Department of Agriculture has extended the waiver by allowing the remaining families to have school meals until 2020.
The measures, which run throughout the school year to give districts and parents more time to be more assertive and plan, aim to end hunger and poverty, said Lisa Davis, senior vice president of Share Our Strength.
According to a study by the Urban Institute, about 61% of parents whose children were on a free or low-cost school meal program before receiving a meal in May.
The window for raising an apology is closing. The USDA must either do so by September 30 or at that time Congress must renew the agency’s powers.
“Someone needs to act because a lot of kids miss meals, and it doesn’t have to be that way,” Davis said.
The school meal program costs about 19 19 billion a year.
Food stamps
Lawmakers have taken some steps to increase the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, as the Food Stamp Program is formally known this spring,
But Congress has not agreed to temporarily raise the level of payments, as it did during the 2008 financial crisis.
Democrats have repeatedly pushed for a 15% increase in maximum food stamp benefits this year, including the House Coronavirus Relief Bill in May. It will provide about ડ 25 per month to each recipient.
The move did not make it a final law amid Republican opposition, and the difficulties of passing a second rescue package in the coming weeks are slim.
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