507,000 children in Washington state will benefit from permanent summer grocery benefits program based on Murray’s original legislation; Murray led the fight for over a decade to make Summer EBT a permanent reality to end child summer hunger
ICYMI: Senator Murray Delivers New Summer Grocery Benefits for 507,000 Children in WA State, Nearly $61 Million in Summer EBT For Families Across WA
***VIDEO HERE of Senator Murray’s speech on Senate floor***
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, spoke on the Senate Floor about her more than decade-long fight to reduce child summer hunger by providing families whose children are eligible for free and reduced-price school meals with an electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card to buy groceries over the summer—a policy knows as “Summer EBT.”During the academic year, more than 30 million kids from low-income families rely on free or reduced-priced meals they receive at school—but when school lets out for the summer, those kids lose access to regular meals and frequently go hungry.
“This has been a long time coming—and it is a huge deal that now, this program is becoming permanent,” Senator Murray said on the Senate floor today. “The painful reality is that right now, in this country, we have some 30 million kids for whom the free or reduced-priced meals they get at school are the difference between them eating a real meal that day or going hungry. And when summer comes, instead of feeling relief at getting a break from homework, many of these kids, and their parents, are worried about where they’re going to get their next meal, until school starts again.”
“Still, even if it seems like common sense and basic humanity that kids shouldn’t go hungry—it’s been a long journey to finally get this idea passed into law,” Murray continued. “Now, that bill is going into effect. And what it means for families is: This summer, in participating states like my home state of Washington, families whose kids qualify for free or reduced-price school meals during the school year will receive a pre-loaded nutrition benefits card worth about $120 per child to buy groceries over the summer. And, unlike the pandemic-era program that we passed, this program is permanent.”
“I’m going to keep pushing to make sure that no child goes hungry—no child. And every family gets the same kind of support that my family got when I was growing up,” Senator Murray concluded.
Senator Murray has been the leading Congressional champion of Summer EBT for a decade, first introducing legislation to establish a permanent Summer EBT program in 2014, helping to secure and extend the Pandemic EBT (P-EBT) program that provided summer grocery benefits to families during the COVID-19 public health emergency in 2020, 2021, and 2022, and ultimately helping to negotiate and pass a permanent Summer EBT program—based on her original Stop Child Summer Hunger Act—as part of the omnibus government funding bill that was signed into law in December 2022.
Through the new program, participating states, territories, and Tribes will provide families with $120 per eligible child for the summer ($40 per eligible child, per month) to buy food at grocery stores, farmers markets or other authorized retailers—similar to how SNAP benefits are used. USDA estimates this program will benefit an estimated 507,000 children in Washington state, with nearly $61 million in new summer EBT benefits going out to Washington state families overall. Administrative costs for the program will be split equally between the federal and state governments. Implementation of the new summer EBT benefits is contingent on Washington state covering its share of the administrative costs through the 2024 budget.
Rigorous evaluations of a multi-year demonstration project showed that providing Summer EBT reduced child hunger and improved diet quality. Summer grocery benefits decreased the number of kids with very low food security by about one-third and supported healthier diets featuring more fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
Having relied on food stamps for a brief time during her childhood, Senator Murray knows firsthand the difference a helping hand can make in the lives of children. As Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Murray is working around the clock to protect and expand vital nutrition assistance and child nutrition programs.
Below is a timeline of Senator Murray’s work to establish a permanent Summer EBT program, stretching back more than a decade:
2010: Summer EBT is initially funded through the Agriculture Appropriations Act of Fiscal Year 2010 that Senator Murray helped negotiate and pass into law which gave the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) the authority to test innovative methods to reduce food insecurity during summer vacation. USDA launched Summer EBT in 2011, as a demonstration project to test the impact of providing summer nutrition benefits through an EBT card to low-income families with school-age children.
2012: New states begin implementing the Summer EBT pilot project, including Washington state.
May 2014: Murray first introduces her landmark Stop Child Summer Hunger Act, which would provide eligible families with an EBT card will provide $150, equal to about $60 per month, for each child eligible for free or reduced-price school meals, so the family can purchase groceries during the summer to replace the meals that the children would otherwise receive at school.
Murray delivered a speech on the Senate floor outlining her new legislation, which was modeled on the successful Summer EBT for Children demonstration project that decreased child hunger by one-third; in the speech she recounted the story of a single mother from Washington state who struggles to provide for her two children over the summer.
- THE OREGONIAN: Sen. Patty Murray’s plan to reduce summer childhood hunger: “Last month, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., introduced the Stop Child Summer Hunger Act, which would give children who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch $150 a month in food stamp benefits over the summer.” [June 28, 2014]
- POLITICO: Sen. Murray introduces bill to reduce child hunger during school breaks: Sen. Patty Murray today introduced a bill that would give families with children eligible for free or reduced-price school meals electronic benefit transfer (EBT) funds during school breaks. The Stop Child Summer Hunger Act is a “long-term, common-sense solution to reducing child hunger during school breaks,” Murray’s office said. [May 21, 2014]
- TALK POVERTY: Stop Child Hunger: An Interview with Senator Patty Murray: “Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D-WA) has introduced the Stop Child Hunger Act to help ensure that all children who qualify for free or reduced-price meals during the school year aren’t hungry in the summer months. It’s a timely and important effort.” [June 5, 2014]
- EVERETT HERALD OP-ED: Ensuring children are fed in summer: “Last month, I introduced a bill called the Stop Child Summer Hunger Act. The bill would use a common-sense strategy to address summer hunger. It would give families a Summer EBT card, which would act like a debit card, with $150 to buy groceries in the summer for each child who qualifies for free or reduced-price meals during the school year. It’s based on a successful pilot program, which has been proven to decrease hunger by 33 percent.” [June 19, 2014]
2015-2019: Murray reintroduces her Stop Child Summer Hunger Act in each successive Congress until the COVID-19 pandemic, talking to her colleagues and building support for the concept of extending nutrition benefits for kids who rely on free and reduced-price school meals through the summer.
March 2020: The Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020 creates a new Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) Program, meant to supplement the school meals that eligible children missed while schools were closed during the COVID-19 public health emergency. With P-EBT, children who would have received free or reduced-price meals if their schools were open instead received temporary emergency nutrition benefits loaded on EBT cards that could be used to purchase food. Notably, the program operated through Summer 2020, rather than being available only in months in which school would have been in session.
March 2021: The American Rescue Plan, which Senator Murray helped author is signed into law; the legislation allowed states to continue their P-EBT programs through Summer 2021.
May 2021: Sen. Murray introduces the Stop Child Hunger Act, legislation that builds on the foundation and successes of the Pandemic-EBT and pandemic-era Summer EBT programs—and Murray’s original Stop Child Summer Hunger Act—and would provide families who have children eligible for free and reduced-price school meals with an electronic benefit transfer card when school is not in session, including over winter and summer break, or when schools are operating remotely or in a hybrid model.
- FROM NBC: Democratic lawmakers aim to make Biden’s summer food program for kids permanent: “Murray, who serves as the chairwoman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has pushed to pass similar legislation since 2014.” [May 26, 2021]
- FROM THE SEATTLE TIMES: How to end child hunger — permanently: “We can drastically cut child poverty with a Child Tax Credit that ensures families have money to meet family needs, universal free school meals and additional food assistance for kids when schools are closed for breaks and disasters, as provided by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray’s Stop Child Hunger Act.” [August 21, 2021]
September 2021: The P-EBT program is extended again through summer 2022 in the Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act, a short-term continuing resolution.
April 2022: Sen. Murray, along with Sens. Stabenow and Murkowski, introduces the Support Kids Not Red Tape Act—which extends USDA school meal flexibilities critical to feeding children over the summer for summer 2022 and summer 2023.
June 2022: The Keep Kids Fed Act—legislation modeled off the Support Kids Not Red Tape Act— is signed into law by President Biden, providing key flexibilities to help get kids healthy meals over summer 2022 and summer 2023.
December 2022: The second-ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Murray secures a permanent extension of the Summer EBT program—based on her original Stop Child Summer Hunger Act—in the omnibus government funding bill for Fiscal Year 2023.
January 2024: Senator Murray celebrates USDA’s official launch of the new, permanent summer EBT program based on her legislation. The bill also established flexibility for alternative meal delivery for rural areas such as grab and go, mobile delivery, backpack programs, or shipping meals. The new Summer EBT program will go into effect this summer—with 35 states including the state of Washington participating. USDA estimates this program will benefit an estimated 507,000 children in Washington state, with nearly $61 million in new summer EBT benefits going out to Washington state families overall.
Families will receive $120 per eligible child for the summer ($40/eligible child, per month) to buy food at grocery stores, farmers markets or other authorized retailers. Summer EBT benefits will come in the form of pre-loaded cards that families can use to purchase groceries. These benefits work together with other nutrition assistance programs like SNAP and WIC. The federal government will cover the full cost of the program and the cost of administering the project will be split 50-50 between federal and state governments. More information on the Summer EBT program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture is HERE.
Here’s what advocates are saying:
“Summer EBT is the tool kids need to make sure they have healthy nutrition through the summer, especially in communities that don’t have access to the Summer Meals program,” said Claire Lane, Director of the Anti-Hunger & Nutrition Coalition. “Summer EBT helps low income parents afford groceries through the summer months when kids are home and families don’t have access to school meals. We know Summer EBT works to reduce child hunger – and reduce parents’ stress when they struggle to put food on the table. The transition from Pandemic EBT to permanent Summer EBT is a huge step forward in the fight to end childhood hunger. Sen. Murray has been a champion for this program for many years, and the pandemic proved this model is really effective for kids and their families.”
“Every child deserves the nutritious food they need to grow and thrive. But for many children who participate in school meal programs, summer break means the loss of consistent access to healthy meals in the cafeteria, resulting in summer hunger,” said Vince Hall, Chief Government Relations Officer at Feeding America. “The new Summer EBT program will help ensure that more than 20 million children, especially kids in rural and hard-to-reach areas, continue to have access to adequate nutrition this summer, enabling them to return to school in the fall well-nourished and ready to learn. It’s taken more than a decade of advocacy and negotiations to establish a permanent Summer EBT grocery benefit program, and Feeding America thanks Sen. Murray for her leadership during that time to help make this crucial nutrition program a reality for our nation’s children. Feeding America celebrates the news that at least 44 states, U.S. territories and tribes—from American Samoa to Washington—intend to launch Summer EBT in 2024, with potentially more to follow in 2025.”
“All our students—Black and white, Native and newcomer, Hispanic and Asian alike—deserve access to the resources needed to grow and thrive. Central to that is access to healthy and nutritious meals whether it’s during the school year or the summer break,” said National Education Association President Becky Pringle. “That is why educators appreciate Senator Murray’s and the Biden administration’s leadership in helping to end child hunger over the summer by making permanent the successful Summer EBT program. This initiative ensures our students are nourished year-round and have the support they need to learn and flourish.”
“With 35 states, the District of Columbia, all U.S. Territories, and four Inter-Tribal Organizations implementing the new Summer EBT program in 2024, millions of families will have access to grocery benefits that will help keep summer hunger at bay and allow children to return to school well-nourished and ready to learn,” said Luis Guardia, President of the Food Research & Action Center. “Senator Murray’s introduction of the Stop Summer Hunger Act in 2014, and her on-going leadership to end summer hunger has been instrumental to the creation of the nationwide Summer EBT Program.”
“We at Northwest Harvest want to thank Senator Murray for her leadership in championing Summer EBT, which provides summertime food assistance for low-income K-12 students. We know that families who rely on school meals to support their children’s nutritional needs also require those resources when school isn’t in session. Hunger does not take summer break and neither can our investments in reducing food insecurity,” said Thomas Reynolds, CEO of Northwest Harvest. “A Summer EBT program in 2024 could serve over 500,000 families and help them access groceries when schools are closed. This program is modeled after the effective and popular Pandemic EBT, which demonstrated how direct-to-households funding is an efficient way to address the conditions that cause hunger. We applaud our lawmakers for providing support to families year-round.”
Senator Murray’s Remarks as Delivered
“Thank you, Mr. President. You know I have been fighting for over a decade to establish a new summer nutrition program to help end child hunger.
“And I come to the floor today to celebrate the tremendous progress we have made in that effort, because this year, legislation I fought to pass in 2022—based on my Stop Child Hunger Act—will go into effect, establishing a permanent summer nutrition benefit for struggling families.
“Summer EBT, electronic benefit transfer.
“Basically, that means millions of parents who rely on free or reduced-price meals to feed their kids during the school year will get help feeding their kids over the summer too.
“This has been a long time coming—and it is a huge deal that now, this program is becoming permanent.
“Child hunger isn’t just something I’ve heard about from parents across my home state of Washington.
“It’s personal to me. I remember what it was like when my family fell on hard times when I was young.
Growing up—my parents had seven kids.
“It was never easy—but when my dad could no longer work because he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis it wasn’t just hard—it was impossible.
“Fortunately for all of us—our country didn’t just say ‘tough luck.’
“We got support. Food stamps helped put food on our table until my mom was able to go back to school and get a job.
“That was the difference between our family getting by—or going hungry. And I want to make sure that we are showing up for families today in the same way.
“Because the painful reality is that right now, in this country, we have some 30 million kids for whom the free or reduced-priced meals they get at school are the difference between them eating a real meal that day or going hungry.
“And when summer comes, instead of feeling relief at getting a break from homework, many of these kids, and their parents, are worried about where they’re going to get their next meal, until school starts again.
“It’s heartbreaking that in the richest country in the world—this is unacceptable.
“That’s why back in 2010 I helped fund the first-of-its-kind pilot program for Summer EBT at USDA.
“The idea is pretty simple—create a program that gives families benefits they can use at the grocery store to help feed their kids over the summer.
“One of the pilot sites was in Vancouver, Washington—and you know what? The program worked!
“Those benefits decreased the number of kids with very low food security by about a third—and it supported a much healthier diet because they got more fruits and vegetables.
“So, to build off the success of that pilot program, in 2014 I first introduced my Stop Child Summer Hunger Act.
“Rigorous evaluations made clear that benefit worked.
“Still, even if it seems like common sense and basic humanity that kids shouldn’t go hungry—it’s been a long journey to finally get this idea passed into law.
“I reintroduced my bill several times, with different colleagues.
“And then the pandemic struck, and threw struggling families into even greater food insecurity—everyone here remembers the enormous numbers of cars lined up outside of food banks across the country in the early days of the pandemic.
“So I started working with my colleagues to establish a temporary nutrition program to see families through that crisis in the relief packages that we passed during the worst of the pandemic.
“And in doing so, we were also able to show how necessary that kind of support is, and how effective it is, and established a foundation that we then built on to pass a permanent summer nutrition program into law as part of our omnibus government funding bill at the end of 2022.
“And I have to pause and really, really thank my great friend and colleague, the senior Senator from Michigan. She chairs the Senate Agricultural Committee and she led on negotiating this big win for kids.
“Now, that bill is going into effect. And what it means for families is: This summer, in participating states like my home state of Washington, families whose kids qualify for free or reduced-price school meals during the school year will receive a pre-loaded nutrition benefits card worth about $120 per child to buy groceries over the summer.
“And—unlike the pandemic-era program that we passed—this program is permanent.
“Those benefits will work similar to SNAP—which means parents can use them to buy food at grocery stores, or farmers markets, and more.
“In my state alone, we’re talking a half a million kids who can benefit from this program. That is a meaningful step towards ending child hunger in America—but as always, we have more work to do.
“No child should ever go hungry in the United States of America.
“And while I don’t think that’s a controversial idea—my message to all my colleagues who agree, is that achieving this takes more than words—it takes action.
“That means giving a hand to families like mine that fell on hard times. It means making sure parents who rely on school lunches for their kids, can keep them fed in the summer months, And fully funding WIC which is a lifeline to so many women and infants. That is something I’m very focused on right now and will not let up until we see that through.
“So, I am here today, not just to celebrate the important progress which I fought for years to make on fighting summer hunger—but to make clear I’m not done fighting.
“I’m going to keep pushing to make sure that no child goes hungry—no child. And every family gets the same kind of support that my family got when I was growing up.”
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