Assistance program
Pandemic EBT Food Benefits
$1.1 Billion committed in FY2021–FY2025
- Agency
- Food and Nutrition Service, Agriculture, Department of
- Assistance
- Not Applicable
- CFDA number
- 10.542
- What it does
- The objective of the of the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program is to provide nutrition assistance on EBT cards for: (1) school-age children who would have received free or reduced price school meals under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP) had their schools not been closed or operating with reduced hours for at least five (5) consecutive days due to the COVID-19 public health emergency; (2) SNAP-enrolled children in child care whose child care facility is closed or has reduced attendance or who live in the area of a school that is closed or has reduced attendance due to the COVID-19 public health emergency; and (3) school-age children eligible for free or reduced price school meals and SNAP-enrolled children in child care during the summer months, regardless of the operating status of their schools or child care facilities. Due to the end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency on May 11, 2023, only school-aged children eligible for free or reduced price meals who attended an NSLP-participating school in School Year 2022-2023 are eligible for P-EBT benefits in Summer 2023.
- Who benefits
- Not Applicable
- Who applies
- Not Applicable
- Authorized by
- Public Law 116-127
- Public Law 116-159
- Public Law 116-260
- Public Law 117-2
- Public Law 117-328
- 7 U.S.C. § 2011
Committed by fiscal year
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments