Report Shows USDA Summer Meals Programs Reach Only Fraction of Kids in Need

An advocacy group on Tuesday published a report showing that only a fraction of children who receive free or reduced-price lunches during the school year get such benefits through United States Department of Agriculture programs in the summer, leaving many families with school-age children food insecure.

Only 15.3% of the number of children who receive subsidized school lunches received a summer meal in 2023, the last year for which data was available, the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) report, Hunger Doesn't Take a Vacation, says. The findings highlight the difficulty of reaching children outside of school.

"When the school year ends, millions of low-income children lose access to the school meals they depend on," Kelsey Boone, a FRAC policy analyst and report co-author, told Common Dreams.

The report assesses the 2023 impact of two long-standing USDA programs that were rebranded this year under the name SUN Meals. The USDA also added two new summer meals programs this year, SUN Meals To-Go and SUN Bucks, the latter of which has been the subject of political controversy.

The SUN Bucks program provides a modest $120 per child for the summer to low-income families in electronic benefit transfers (EBTs), similar to the way food stamp money is distributed. The program is administered by states, territories, and tribes and is expected to bring $2.5 billion in grocery benefits to 21 million children this summer.

But it could reach even more children: 13 Republican-controlled states have opted out. They cite reasons including philosophical opposition to "welfare," other summer lunch programs already on offer in their states, and high administrative costs. All of the EBT money comes directly from the federal government, but states are required to pay 50% of the costs of running the program.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom's press office responded to news of the Republican opt-outs by writing on social media earlier this month that "California has fed over 3.2 million kids through summer meal programs while Republican states refuse free federal dollars."

Connecticut State Sen. Bob Duff, a Democrat, responded by writing, "Is being cruel part of the [Republican] party platform?"

In Florida, where the Republican administration opted out of SUN Bucks, families who could have benefited expressed disbelief.

Crystal Ripolio, a woman in Tallahassee who said she struggles to feed her 8-year-old daughter, told The Associated Press that her state should offer the same summer meal money that other states do.

"If other states are able to do it, why can't we?" she said, standing outside a food bank that happened to be near Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' official residence in Tallahassee. "That doesn't make sense."

Some Republican-controlled states, such as Louisiana and Nebraska, initially declined to opt in but ultimately decided to do so. States that opted out of SUN Bucks in 2024 may enroll next year.

The USDA's other programs, including those addressed in the new report, face challenges that are not as explicitly political. Though the summer programs did reach 2.8 million children per day in 2023, logistical challenges abound.

"We believe that the low ratio of summer lunch to school year lunch is due to many factors including barriers to participation such as lack of transportation and lack of meal sites in a child's area and high area eligibility thresholds, meaning an open site (a site that serves all children that come to it regardless of income status) must be in an area where 50% or more of the population of children are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunch," Boone said.

"It is much easier to access meals when children are already at school," she added.

The FRAC report calls on Congress to allow more communities to offer summer meals and to let more sites operate year-round and provide three meals a day.