House Education & Labor Committee Markup Proposes Major Investments to Fight Child Hunger

Tomorrow, the House Education & Labor Committee will mark up its portion of the Build Back Better Act. The Committee includes more than $35 billion in funding for the Child Nutrition Programs, including key investments that would benefit California and have been long sought by the California Association of Food Banks and broader the anti-hunger community.

Despite interventions, hunger among California households with children remains unacceptable, with nearly 700,000 California children actively without enough food，这是最严重的饥饿形式。通过采纳这些提案，国会可以确认疫情前的粮食不安全现状是不可接受的，并朝着为我们的子孙后代创造无饥饿未来的方向迈进。

该法案中提出的许多投资都得到了佩洛西议长、洛夫格伦众议员、德索尔尼尔众议员和莱文众议员的支持，我们感谢他们发挥的领导作用，优先考虑儿童和家庭的需求。

The investments proposed in the Build Back Better Act will bolster California’s first in the nation adoption of healthy school meals for all，从而能够对 meal quality, workforce, and other school nutrition program needs。它还将在全国范围内建立夏季 EBT，这是加州长期以来的优先事项。通过疫情期间的 EBT 计划，在没有学校餐食时，EBT 援助比以往任何时候都更加重要——这是移民家庭和被排除在其他援助之外的人的生命线——并强调 国会饥饿中心的 Rocio Perez 报告调查了近 1,500 个获得 P-EBT 的拉丁裔、亚裔美国人和其他加州家庭. (A summary of the provisions is below.)

These proposals work to ensure critical food access and support a more equitable recovery. It’s paramount that we learn the lessons of the Great Recession and not cut aid prematurely, but make long-term improvements to the food safety net needed to prevent a resurgence in hunger.

We call on all California Members of the House Education & Labor Committee to support the bill, and urge the House and Senate to quickly pass the Build Back Better Act into law.

Summary of Child Nutrition proposals in the Build Back Better Act:

• Improve the Community Eligibility Provision: lower the eligibility threshold from 40 to 25 percent Identified Students and make it more financially viable by increasing the multiplier from 1.6 to 2.5. This will bring significant savings to California’s first-in-the-nation adoption of school meals for all, allowing for significant reinvestment into our school nutrition program.
• Give California and all states the option to implement Community Eligibility statewide, bringing significant program streamlining – and if utilized, would make all California students automatically eligible for Summer EBT.
• Establish Summer EBT nationwide for students who receive free or reduced-price school meals, as championed by Rep. Levin in H.R. 3519. The Act would allow states as well as Tribal organizations that participate in WIC to provide Summer EBT.
• Provide $500 million for school kitchen equipment grants, as championed by Rep. DeSaulnier in H.R. 4379.
• Allow all states to conduct Medicaid direct certification, which is currently limited to 35 states, including California.
• Improve direct certification for free school meals for children who participate in Medicaid and receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, guardianship, or adoption assistance payments, or are in kinship care.
• Provide $634 million for a Healthy School Meal Incentives demonstration project.