FRAC Chat

For many students in Maryland, the back-to-school season is an exciting time of reconnecting with old friends, meeting new teachers, and shopping for school supplies. But for families struggling with food insecurity, the start of school may also bring an added sense of relief in knowing that their children will have access to a critical resource typically not available over the summer — healthy free school meals.

There is considerable evidence of the effective role that school meals play in alleviating poverty and food insecurity, supporting good nutrition, boosting learning, and improving health outcomes. However, nearly 60 percent of children just above the cutoff for free school meals are children of color. Healthy School Meals for All can serve as a critical tool in the fight to achieve racial equity, improving educational and health outcomes for students, particularly Black and Latinx students, by allowing schools to offer breakfast and lunch to all students at no cost.

During COVID-19, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) has had enhanced authority from Congress to grant state SNAP agencies greater flexibility on enrollment procedures. In new policy guidance, FNS has clarified that, even after the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Declaration (PHE) and its enhanced authority ends, it can use its normal waiver authority to approve requests for continuation of some of those workarounds. 

The Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) released a new report, Pandemic EBT: Recommendations for a Permanent Nationwide Summer EBT Program, which used responses collected from a survey of state Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program agencies about the summer 2021 Pandemic EBT (P-EBT) Program to identify and synthesize lessons learned from implementation to inform policy and best practices.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) maximum allotments will increase in fiscal year (FY) 2023, but fall short of the amounts needed for adequate diets, according to a Food Research & Action Center analysis. The cost-of-living adjustments, announced by U.S. Department of Agriculture in August 2022, reflect the pricing of the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) market basket in June 2022. Given the impact of inflation in recent months, the maximum benefit for four-person SNAP households with the lowest incomes will increase from $835 to $939, but still will be $75 below the level calibrated to the more realistic Low-Cost Food Plan.