Last week, Governor Shapiro signed the PA state budget bill into law. This budget includes some exciting provisions that will increase food security for Pennsylvania students! These provisions include:
- Universal Free School Breakfast: All public school children will be eligible to receive a free breakfast regardless of their family's income.
- Elimination of the “Reduced Price” Lunch Category: The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) allows schools to provide free or reduced price meals to students based on their family income. The newly signed budget provides additional state funds so that students who previously qualified for a reduced price meal will now receive a free school lunch.
P-EBT For Kids Ages 0-5 for 2022-2023 School Year UPDATE
Pennsylvania has distributed the second round of P-EBT for kids ages 0-5 who were receiving SNAP in the 2022-2023 school year.
Eligible Kids: To be eligible for this benefit, your child must:
- Have been between the ages of 0-5 AND
- Have received SNAP at some point between September 1, 2022 and May 11, 2023.*
*Note: Your child will only receive a P-EBT benefit for months in which they were receiving SNAP and were under the age of 6. If your child did not meet both rules for every month of the school year (September-May), they will get a partial P-EBT benefit only covering the months they were eligible.
Payment Amount: The second payment covers January 1 - May 11, 2023. The payment for May only covers part of the month because P-EBT is tied to the Federal Public Health Emergency (PHE), which ended on May 11, 2023. Because of this, the payment for May is a smaller amount than the other months.
To figure out how much P-EBT your child should have received, add up all the months that your child received SNAP. If a child ages 0-5 was receiving SNAP every month from January – May 2023, they would receive a payment of $141.87.
The second P-EBT payment was distributed to families at the end of July.
What should I do if there is a problem with my P-EBT payment?
If you think there was a problem with your child’s P-EBT payment, you will need to contact the state. You can do this by:
1. Calling the P-EBT Hotline at 1-877-343-0179
2. Submitting an inquiry through the new P-EBT inquiry portal. *Note: you will need to create an account to submit an inquiry. Once you create an account and submit your inquiry, you will be able to check the status of your question as the state works to solve it.