FRAC Chat

In this #FRACTurns50 blog, FRAC’s Founding Executive Director, Ron Pollack, shares the organization’s critical role in the expansion of the Food Stamp Program, known today as the Supplemental Nutrition Program (SNAP). Millions of households rely on SNAP as the first line of defense against hunger. As the fallout of COVID continues to deepen, the number of SNAP applications is skyrocketing. It is crucial to protect and strengthen SNAP during this time.

The Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program, authorized through the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, provides states a critical opportunity to provide support, efficiently and comprehensively, to families relying on free or reduced-price school meals when school is open. Through P-EBT, states can issue eligible households an EBT card with the value of the free school breakfast and lunch reimbursement rates for the number of weekdays that schools are closed due to COVID-19 (estimated to be around $5.70 per day).

A new research brief from Healthy Eating Research (HER), A National Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, underscores why it is urgent for policymakers to enact SNAP benefit increases in the next COVID-19 emergency relief package. Steps taken in prior packages are providing a modest measure of help, but, given the magnitude of the crisis, are insufficient to provide adequate nutrition assistance to meet overall need and to spur economic recovery. Now is the time to strengthen SNAP benefits.

The anti-hunger community’s work is more critical than ever as the COVID-19 pandemic presents a twin threat to public health and the economy. Even before the crisis, 37 million people across the country lived in food-insecure households, and an untold number more are expected to struggle to put food on the table as the pandemic continues to unfold.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents a twin threat to public health and the American economy. It is creating significant challenges for 37 million people across the country who are living in food-insecure households and for untold others who are on the brink of poverty, which is the root cause of hunger. Social distancing, decreased work opportunities, and school, child care, and senior center closures are exacerbating the struggles of families that were already wondering how they will put their next meal on the table, and do not have the resources to stockpile food during this crisis.