Published July 10, 2026
The third summer of the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer (Summer EBT) Program is currently underway. Thirty-eight states, the District of Columbia, five Indian Tribal Organizations, and five U.S. territories are at work sending millions of families across the country grocery benefits that can help ensure their children remain fed throughout the summer months. Despite being a newer program, best practices around multiple aspects of implementation have already begun to emerge, and increasing redemption rates is an important part of ensuring the program’s success.
A redemption rate is the percentage of benefits spent out of the total amount of benefits issued. For Summer EBT demonstration projects, redemption rates were as high as 98 percent. While there is not currently national data available on Summer EBT redemption rates, anecdotally, states have reported redemption rates during the first two years of implementation as lower than the demonstration projects’ benchmark.
FRAC’s new resource explores strategies that can help states increase redemption rates at the federal, state, and community level. These strategies include:
- Federal: Change regulations to require administering agencies to collect and report data on redemption to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
- State: Co-load Summer EBT benefits onto existing SNAP cards when possible, communicate with families directly through text or calls, create customizable outreach materials that can be used by schools and community partners, and request granular data from EBT vendors to better strategize outreach plans.
- Community: Request state-level data to target low-participation areas and increase outreach to boost awareness among the population served.
In a webinar, FRAC highlighted state agencies and community groups that are putting those strategies into action:
- Ohio Department of Education and Workforce has developed and refined outreach plans and toolkits to ensure they reach as many eligible children as possible. The state has drawn on USDA resources, adapted materials from other state agencies, as well as created their own. Overall, the agency aims to reduce administrative burden, minimize burden on families by creating streamlined systems that take into account user experience, maximize household utilization, and minimize expungement.
- Washington State Department of Social and Health Services has been diligent about ensuring proactive communication with families to increase awareness and understanding. The agency created a text system that keeps families informed about timelines of issuance, application status, card deliveries, among others. Importantly, this system also highlights the amount of benefits remaining when expungement is approaching to remind families to use their benefits. The text contained in these messages can also be found on the state website, so families know it is not a fraudulent message. The department also runs ads on local radio stations and in grocery stores, and partners with summer meal sites to spread the word about Summer EBT to families.
- Arizona Association of Food Banks, an anti-hunger organization, partnered with their state agency to get data on the zip codes that had redemption rates below 90 percent to allow them to do targeted outreach in those areas. This outreach included paid social media ads, direct outreach to schools, and following up at key points during the summer to make sure families had received and were utilizing their benefits. They found that low redemption rates occurred in communities with Community Eligibility Provision schools and traditional National School Lunch Program schools, and in rural and urban areas. A key theme was that some eligible families were hesitant to use Summer EBT because they knew little about the program, which underscores the importance of building awareness.
For more information on promising practices in Summer EBT, please reach out to Kelsey Boone, kboone@frac.org, or visit our Summer EBT webpage, https://frac.org/summer-ebt.