The programme, Pandemic-EBT, aims to compensate for the declining reach of school meals by placing their value on electronic cards that families can use in grocery stores. Many Southern states with high rates of child hunger have gotten a slow start. So vital are school meals in some places, states are issuing replacement benefits in waves to keep grocers from being overwhelmed. In creating Pandemic-EBT (for Electronic Benefit Transfer), Congress bet that plastic cards could reach more people than school meals and offer greater choice. When her husband, a mechanic, lost his job at the same time their children, 11 and 6, stopped going to school, food expenses rose as income vanished.

Source: bd News24 May 27, 2020 05:26 UTC