The state told the Agriculture Department that it won't participate in the federal Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children program.

Iowa will not participate this summer in a federal program that gives $40 per month to each child in a low-income family to help with food costs while school is out, state officials have announced.

The state has notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture that it will not participate in the 2024 Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children — or Summer EBT — program, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education said in a Friday news release.

“Federal COVID-era cash benefit programs are not sustainable and don’t provide long-term solutions for the issues impacting children and families. An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic,” Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said in the news release.

  • @Empricorn@feddit.nlEnglish
    82•11 months ago

    So… In order to score cheap political points and attack the Biden administration, she’s blocking food for hungry kids that her state doesn’t even have to pay for.

    What a disgusting creature

    • @Mirshe@lemmy.world
      14•11 months ago

      States now do bear an amount of the cost of EBT programs, but it’s pretty negligible. I think I saw on another thread that she’s basically only saving $2.2m doing this, when IA is already ending the year with an enormous budget surplus (because she and the GOP have cut everything to the bone and then started sawing).