Economic forecasts project unemployment will peak this summer, at the same time critical nutrition waivers will lapse.
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Update (6.10.2020)
Thanks to your advocacy, USDA announced they will be extending the Area Eligibility Waiver through August 31st, 2020. There is still more advocacy needed to extend this and other waivers through next school year, but this recent policy change will have a tremendous impact on ensuring summer meal programs can continue to reach children in need.
Summer Meals
When school’s out and summer begins, school districts and community-based organizations typically operate close to 5,000 summer meal sites and serve meals to over 600,000 kids.* This year will not be typical. Financial strains, staffing challenges, and summer-learning closures related to COVID-19 may lead many sites to limit or close down their summer-meal operations. Federal action is needed to help mitigate the harm.
One of the most effective approaches to mitigating hunger among children this summer is extending the duration of Pandemic-EBT. Pandemic-EBT provides benefits for families to purchase food for their children when school is cancelled due to COVID-19, but the program is only available during the regularly scheduled school year. Pandemic-EBT will expire before July and congressional action and funding is needed to expand the program through the summer.
Meal service through school and community sites also play an important role in preventing summer hunger. USDA recently extended three child nutrition waivers that are necessary for meal programs to operate this summer during COVID-19: Non-Congregate Feeding, Parent/Guardian Meal Pick Up, and Meal Times. Unfortunately, the waiver extensions only go through August 31st and some schools are not scheduled to come back from break until September. Other waivers, including the After School Activity, Area Eligibility, and Unanticipated School Closures waiver are set to expire even earlier, at the end of June. The expiration of these waivers will lead to a smaller number of children having access to free meals and we anticipate that many sites will choose to close down because of the administrative challenges involved in transitioning to summer meal service.
CalFresh
When the public health crisis eases, we know that our economy and millions of Californians will still be in serious trouble. An estimated 3-4 million Californians have already lost their jobs and economic forecasts project that unemployment will increase even further, peaking this summer. UCLA’s Anderson Forecast projects “the state’s unemployment rate to be higher than for the U.S.,” peaking at 16%. Unfortunately, such high rates of unemployment will also come with a rising number of families struggling to put food on the table. CalFresh (known nationally as SNAP) is one of the most effective mechanisms available both to prevent increases in hunger and poverty and to stimulate the economy. Federal action is needed to boost the power of CalFresh to respond to the crisis and the economic fallout that will continue through the summer and beyond.
Without action from USDA and congress, many of the CalFresh flexibilities that were made possible by previous COVID-19 stimulus packages are set to expire at the end of June. The Families First Act provided temporary authority for USDA to approve state plans to bump up SNAP benefits to the current maximum monthly allotment for a household of the same size during the pandemic. Monthly allotment boosts were made for March, April, and May, but the most low-income participants never received any bump in their benefits, because they were already at the maximum monthly allotment. USDA has also not yet approved plans for emergency allotments to be issued for June in California. The Families First Act also provided USDA the authority to waive certain application requirements for the program. These too are set to expire at the end of June. The loss of these waivers jeopardizes access to food for many Californians. USDA must act now to extend emergency allotments and waivers that ease the SNAP/CalFresh enrollment process. Congress should also help fill the gaps of previous COVID-19 relief legislation and pass legislation to temporarily increase the maximum SNAP benefit by 15 percent, raise the minimum benefit from $16 to $30, and suspend all federal rulemaking that would diminish benefit levels or decrease access to the program. These key relief measures were included in the HEROES Act passed by the House in May of 2020 and should be supported by the Senate.
WIC
From child care closures, cut back hours, and layoffs, COVID-19 is driving changes that dramatically decrease the resources families with young children have available to purchase food. Young children are particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts of food insecurity. California’s WIC participation has been a lifeline for many families to prevent hunger and to get connected to other resources in their community. The program brings in nearly $500,000,000 in annual federal funding for families to spend directly on food. Participation in California is close to one million women, infants and children, but informal reports from local WIC agencies suggest that number has jumped. According to local WIC agencies, 34,000 more benefits were issued in April than in the previous month. The ability of WIC to respond quickly and effectively to the expanded need is partially thanks to waivers from USDA that will expire at the end of June without federal action.
On March 18th Trump signed H.R. 6201, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act into law. The act provided broad authority to USDA to grant waivers of regulatory requirements during the pandemic to ensure states are able to meet the specific nutrition needs of pregnant women, new moms, and young children as WIC adopts new practices to remotely serve participant needs. Following the passage of the act, California was granted a waiver of the physical presence requirement for WIC, the ability to issue benefits remotely, to expand the WIC-approved food list, defer anthropometric and bloodwork requirements, and to extend certification periods. The flexibilities were critical to allowing WIC agencies to stay open while serving participants remotely over the phone. Congress gave USDA authority to extend the waivers. However, USDA has only approved the waivers through the end of June. With unemployment expected to peak this summer, USDA must act to extend all WIC waivers through September.
We Need Your Help!
Congress and the Trump Administration need to hear from you how the expiration of these waivers will impact your community and about the urgency for the next COVID-19 recovery bill. Earlier in May the House passed a COVID-19 recovery bill (HEROES Act) that included multiple relief provisions desperately needed to help Californians put food on the table. Now the Senate must take on the bill. Although California’s Senators are part of the minority party, your advocacy can still help. USDA also needs to feel the pressure. They have authority to extend existing waivers further, and need to hear from you about the urgency to act.
* Source: CFPA analysis of publicly available CDE summer food program data on SSO and SFSP for FY 2017-2018.
Questions? Contact: Melissa Cannon at 209.200.8446 or visit www.cfpa.net/covid19 or www.cfpa.net/federal-advocacy
