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.

  • Twentytwodividedby7@lemmy.world
    87·
    11 months ago

    Iowa has a budget of $8.5B. This program has about 93k eligible families in the state. At $40 per month, assuming 3 months for summer, the total cost is about $11M. Or 0.10% of their state budget. It’s a rounding error…

        • kool_newtEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          I’d say you’re both right. Power exists in a relative scale, if there is nobody below you to coerce then there is no power. The causing of suffering is an expression of power, it’s a way of saying “I am entitled to a life without suffering, you are not”.

    • Mike D.
      2·
      11 months ago

      Iowa’s cost would only be $2.2M for admin fees.