New state data show hundreds of thousands of California children never used the free food benefits they were issued in all three of the state’s most recent pandemic EBT programs.
California has now offered four rounds of a federally-sponsored pandemic EBT program meant to help children’s families pay for for food they would have gotten for free at school or child care but did not due to pandemic closures or absences.
Generally the benefits have been available for school-aged children whose family incomes qualified them for free or reduced-price lunch, or who attended a school that provided free meals to all students regardless of income eligibility. Children under age 6 who qualify for CalFresh also were issued benefits.
Most of the $9.4 billion in benefits issued during the three most recent pandemic EBT rounds was spent, and the families of most children at least activated their benefits cards.
But $1.2 billion, or 13 percent, of those benefits have not been spent, according to state data obtained by the San Diego Union-Tribune through a public record request.
About 654,000 children who were issued benefits for the second round and 630,000 children issued benefits for the third round never accessed them, the data shows. That equates to about 13 percent of children eligible for benefits — a number that may include children whose families would not have been individually eligible but who qualified because of their school.
The San Diego Hunger Coalition estimates that cards issued to about 60,000 children in San Diego County were never activated for the second and third rounds.
In total about $777.6 million was never spent for the second round, and $304.7 million hadn’t been spent for the third round as of Jan. 4.
For the fourth and latest round of benefits, about 1.2 million children — or 19 percent those issued benefits, a larger share than in previous rounds — have not yet accessed their funds. A fifth of the benefits is unspent, totaling about $165.5 million.
Families still have time to activate their benefits cards from the fourth round, but the deadline has passed to activate cards for the second and third rounds of funds.
Last year, the state allowed families who had been eligible for the second round of benefits a chance to recoup their lost benefits by requesting a replacement card.
That effort had limited success, according to state data. Of the roughly 800,000 cards that could have been reissued statewide, only 12,247 cards totaling more than $15 million were requested and reissued, the department said.
San Diego County got more cards reissued than any other California county, said Alondra Alvarado, CEO of the San Diego Hunger Coalition, which spearheaded the reissuance effort. More than 3,500 cards were reissued to San Diego County families, equal to $4.3 million in benefits, according to statewide data shared by the organization.
Some families who moved during the pandemic had their benefits cards sent to outdated addresses schools had on file before the pandemic, Alvarado said.
Others may not have known about the program or that they were eligible. The cards may have confused some higher-income families who did not personally qualify for benefits but were issued them anyway because their children attended a school that had provided universal free meals to all students regardless of income.
Some parents didn’t use the cards because they thought they were a scam, Alvarado added.
“Better communication is definitely needed,” she said.
The state Department of Social Services said it sent postcards about the benefits programs to every eligible child last summer and worked with local outreach organizations who helped spread the word about the benefits.
