Iowa proposes summer grocery boxes as alternative to direct cash payments for low-income families

DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa on Thursday proposed an alternative program to address child hunger during next year's summer break, a plan that the state says can leverage existing community-driven infrastructure and prioritize nutrition, but critics — including a federal agency — say takes resources and agency away from low-income families.

Iowa and other states opted out of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's summer EBT program in 2024, which offered $120 per school-aged child to low-income families for grocery purchases over the summer months.

More than 244,000 children were provided the pandemic summer EBT cards in 2023, according to the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, amounting to over $29 million in federal funds.

Iowa instead devoted $900,000 in competitive grants that led to 61 new sites for other federal nutrition programs that facilitate schools and nonprofit organizations in low-income areas serving summer meals and snacks to kids.

Next year, Iowa wants to again forgo the EBT option and instead offer grocery boxes each of the three summer months. Kelly Garcia, director of the state's health and human services agency, said the proposal allows Iowa to buy in bulk to stretch program dollars, offset inflation costs for families, choose nutritional foods to fill boxes and increase the number of families that are eligible.

''The complex issues of food insecurity and obesity cannot be solved with cash benefits that don't actively promote health, nutrition-dense food, or reach all Iowa children in need,'' said Kelly Garcia, director of Iowa's health and human services agency.

In a statement to the Des Moines Register, the USDA said what Iowa is proposing goes against decades of research and evaluation behind a program that ''provides families with the freedom to make their own decisions on what food is best" for them.

The new approach hasn't done much to convince critics in Iowa, either, especially Democrats, who have long lambasted Reynolds for rejecting such a large sum of money intended to feed Iowa kids. That includes state Sen. Sarah Trone-Garriott, who works with the Des Moines Area Religious Council Food Pantry Network and assisted with their grocery boxes program during the pandemic.

Trone-Garriott said the proposal would require a cumbersome volunteer-based effort that would be less efficient than offering families the funds to use at their local grocery stores, which they go to anyway. The federal program is effective at alleviating the intense need, which she said has shifted this summer to record high demand at local food pantries.

''It's not as accessible,'' she said. ''It's this idea that we can't trust people who are struggling financially to make good choices.''

Garcia told USDA administrators in a letter Thursday that Iowa did not participate in the 2024 EBT program because of its ''operational redundancy with existing programs, high administrative costs for states, and lack of nutritional focus.''

States that participate in the program are required to cover half of the administrative costs, which would have cost an estimated $2.2 million in Iowa, the state said last year.