The American Rescue Plan Act includes $12 billion in key investments to food assistance programs to mitigate the nation’s extraordinarily high levels of hunger and hardship. The American Rescue Plan Act includes $12 billion in key investments to food assistance programs to mitigate the nation’s extraordinarily high levels of hunger and hardship.The major food assistance provisions:
Extend through September the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit increase in December’s COVID relief package, which will help millions of families and children have enough to eat while injecting additional, high “bang-for-the-buck” stimulus into the economy;
Help guard against food hardship among children this summer by allowing states to continue the Pandemic-EBT (P-EBT) program, which provides grocery benefits to replace meals that children miss when schools are closed;
Invest in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to modernize the program, support innovative service delivery models, conduct robust outreach, and temporarily raise the amount of fruit and vegetables participants can obtain;
Increase federal resources for state administrative costs to help states accommodate the increased demand for SNAP; and
Help address elevated food need in Puerto Rico and certain other U.S. territories.
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