Skip to main content

The Effect of Pandemic EBT on Measures of Food Hardship

In the spring of 2020, 55 million school-age children were not in school and tens of millions lost access to school-based nutrition assistance programs. To alleviate the effects of lost daily school meals and to help households with children meet their nutritional needs, Congress authorized a new program, Pandemic EBT, which provides families with a voucher to purchase groceries for an amount equal in value to the school meals missed from the start of school closures to the end of the 2019–20 school year. We find that Pandemic EBT reduced food hardship experienced by low-income families with children and lifted at least 2.7-3.9 million children out of hunger.

Report from The Hamilton Project by Lauren Bauer, Abigail Pitts, Krista Ruffini, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

Read the full fact sheet

More News

Arizona Will Lose $14.2 billion to Tax Cuts by 2028

In recent years, policymakers in Phoenix joined their counterparts in more than half the states across the country on a historic revenue-reduction spree that shifted public funds away from public investments and toward tax…

Children’s Action Alliance Selects January Contreras as New CEO

Children’s Action Alliance has named January Contreras to lead the organization as its new Chief Executive Officer. Contreras, a national and Arizona leader who has dedicated her career to strengthening the well-being and…

New Tool Illustrates Unexpected Qualities and Contributions of Arizona Immigrants

Though common narratives suggest that immigrants arrive in the United States with limited English skills, the opposite is true according to 2021 American Community Survey (ACS) five-year data from the U.S. Census Bureau….