Pandemic-related school closures left millions of students without access to free and reduced-price lunches. In response, states began providing emergency benefits through the federal Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program, which allows eligible children to receive temporary emergency nutrition benefits through EBT cards used to purchase food. This guide, now covering 46 states, summarizes key components of approved plans to help decisionmakers explore implementation options.
With COVID-19 infection rates decreasing and immunization rates rising, the country now seems on a clear path to recovery. But to ensure equity, we must support people and communities disproportionately burdened by the economic and health implications of the pandemic. Researchers examined how risk of coronavirus exposure translated across racial and ethnic lines and found that Black, Native American, and Hispanic/Latinx workers were more likely to have jobs with greater exposure risk. This report suggests clear ways to protect the health and well-being of these workers and their families as the nation deals with the pandemic’s consequences.
Could the child tax credit affect long-term child health outcomes?
Children who grow up in poverty are exposed to many risk factors that can adversely affect their health into and throughout adulthood. This year, families with children became eligible for advance payments of the child tax credit, a refundable tax credit that provides up to $3,600 per qualifying child younger than 18 and is
estimated to lift millions of children out of poverty. Similar programs have been shown to improve children’s long-term health outcomes; an additional $100 in the average annual earned income tax credit exposure between birth and age 18 increases the likelihood of reporting very good or excellent health by 2.6 percent between ages 22 and 27.
