Congress created the Pandemic-Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) program to enable 30 million under-privileged children to maintain an acceptable standard of nutrition given that schools are closed as a result of COVID-19 restrictions. According to an article by Jason DeParle in a May 26th article in The New York Times, less than four million children have benefited from the program approved in mid-March. Two months after approval only 15 percent of eligible children had received benefits and only twelve states have fully provided benefits to parents.
Reasons for the delay in providing relief to families relate to obsolete computer systems, lack of coordination between Federal and state agencies and inefficiency in companies providing technical and logistic support.
A spokesperson for the Food Research and Action Center located in Washington stressed the need for a Federal nutrition safety net to implement programs that are beyond the resources of states especially those in the south. The Brookings Institution conducted a survey that determined that a fifth of U.S. children are currently deprived of food. This was confirmed by the Census Bureau that reported almost one third of U.S. households with children lacked financial resources to supply adequate food. It is estimated that 80 percent of children in Louisiana and 85 percent in West Virg
inia qualify for the program that established an income threshold of $48,000 for a family of four.