Broward school meals: Families' next steps as universal free lunches will come to an end
For the 2025-26 school year, lunch prices will rise by $1 for paying students: $3.50 for lunch in high school, $3.35 in middle school and $3 in elementary school.
But those costs wouldn't pertain to certain eligible students. In a news release Friday, the district provided additional steps that families can take.
Broward schools on July 14 will begin 'accepting Meal Benefits Applications' at www.myschoolapps.com to determine families' eligibility for free or reduced-price school lunches. The application is available throughout the school year at myschoolapps.com. For those eligible, each reduced-price lunch is 40 cents, the district said.
Broward school district to end universal free lunches, raise lunch prices
The application process marks a transition back to the steps in place before the district began offering free lunches to all students during the past two years, bolstered by program funding. For the past two years, Broward Schools' Food and Nutrition Services Department assisted families with the cost of meals through two U.S. Department of Agriculture programs, as well as Food and Nutrition Services funds, the district said in a news release.
For the upcoming school year, 'free and reduced-price lunches will be offered based on eligibility, requiring families to complete an application,' it said.
The district said automatically certified to receive free lunches are students who either:
— Receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. — Have Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits. — Are 'enrolled in Head Start, Foster, Homeless, or Migrant.'
Families should create an account for each student through My School Bucks at www.myschoolbucks.com, starting July 28, to buy meals and a la carte items, the district said.
All students will keep receiving free breakfasts through the U.S. Department of Agriculture Universal Free Breakfast Program, the district said.
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Newsweek
19 hours ago
- Newsweek
When Are September 2025 SNAP Payments Coming?
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. SNAP beneficiaries benefits are paid monthly—but when exactly will you get yours in September 2025? What Are SNAP Benefits? The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest federal food assistance program in the United States, designed to help low-income individuals and families buy groceries. Administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, SNAP provides monthly benefits through an Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card, which works like a debit card at authorized retailers and farmers' markets. Eligibility is based on income, household size, and certain expenses. SNAP Payment Dates for September 2025 SNAP is funded at the federal level, but states oversee administration and benefit distribution, which means payment schedules differ across the country. Some states tie issuance dates to case numbers: for example, California staggers payments so households with case numbers ending in 01 receive benefits sooner than those ending in 99. Others, like Connecticut and Delaware, schedule payments according to the first letter of a recipient's last name. In states with small populations, such as Alaska and South Dakota, all benefits are often released on a single day. Stock image/file photo: A woman grocery shopping. Stock image/file photo: A woman grocery shopping. GETTY SNAP payments in September will be made on the following dates in each state: Alabama : September 4 to 23 : September 4 to 23 Alaska : September 1 : September 1 Arizona : September 1 to 13 : September 1 to 13 Arkansas : September 4 to 13 : September 4 to 13 California : September 1 to 10 : September 1 to 10 Colorado : September 1 to 10 : September 1 to 10 Connecticut : September 1 to 3 : September 1 to 3 Delaware : September 2 to 23 : September 2 to 23 District of Columbia : September 1 to 10 : September 1 to 10 Florida : September 1 to 28 : September 1 to 28 Georgia : September 5 to 23 : September 5 to 23 Guam : September 1 to 10 : September 1 to 10 Hawaii : September 3 to 5 : September 3 to 5 Idaho : September 1 to 10 : September 1 to 10 Illinois : September 1 to 20 : September 1 to 20 Indiana : September 5 to 23 : September 5 to 23 Iowa : September 1 to 10 : September 1 to 10 Kansas : September 1 to 10 : September 1 to 10 Kentucky : September 1 to 19 : September 1 to 19 Louisiana : September 1 to 23 : September 1 to 23 Maine : September 10 to 14 : September 10 to 14 Maryland : September 4 to 23 : September 4 to 23 Massachusetts : September 1 to 14 : September 1 to 14 Michigan : September 3 to 21 : September 3 to 21 Minnesota : September 4 to 13 : September 4 to 13 Mississippi : September 4 to 21 : September 4 to 21 Missouri : September 1 to 22 : September 1 to 22 Montana : September 2 to 6 : September 2 to 6 Nebraska : September 1 to 5 : September 1 to 5 Nevada : September 1 to 10 : September 1 to 10 New Hampshire : September 5 : September 5 New Jersey : September 1 to 5 : September 1 to 5 New Mexico : September 1 to 20 : September 1 to 20 New York : September 1 to 9 : September 1 to 9 North Carolina : September 3 to 21 : September 3 to 21 North Dakota : September 1 : September 1 Ohio : September 2 to 20 : September 2 to 20 Oklahoma : September 1 to 10 : September 1 to 10 Oregon : September 1 to 9 : September 1 to 9 Pennsylvania : September 3 to 14 : September 3 to 14 Puerto Rico : September 4 to September 22 : September 4 to September 22 Rhode Island : September 1 : September 1 South Carolina : September 1 to 19 : September 1 to 19 South Dakota : September 10 : September 10 Tennessee : September 1 to 20 : September 1 to 20 Texas : September 1 to 28 : September 1 to 28 Utah : September 5, 11 and 15 : September 5, 11 and 15 Virgin Islands : September 1 : September 1 Vermont : September 1 : September 1 Virginia : September 1 to 7 : September 1 to 7 Washington : September 1 to 20 : September 1 to 20 West Virginia : September 1 to 9 : September 1 to 9 Wisconsin : September 1 to 15 : September 1 to 15 Wyoming: September 1 to 4 What Can SNAP Buy? SNAP benefits can be used to purchase a wide range of groceries, including fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, fish, dairy products, breads, cereals, snack foods, and non-alcoholic beverages. They also cover seeds and plants that can grow food for a household to eat. Benefits cannot be used for non-food items or prepared meals in most states. However, since the start of 2025, 12 states have barred unhealthy foods and/or drinks from being bought using SNAP benefits: Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia. However, these new rules will not be in place until 2026.
Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- Chicago Tribune
‘A terrible position': Illinois sprints to lower new SNAP costs without booting people who need it
As an outreach coordinator for one of the Chicago area's largest food banks, Joann Montes is already seeing an impact from President Donald Trump's reductions to public assistance programs even before those cuts take effect. Anxious older adults who for years received what were once called food stamps are approaching Montes at senior centers to ask if those benefits will continue and whether they'll have to return to jobs 'to be able to feed themselves.' 'Our folks who are 60 and older are asking questions about whether they're going to be able to receive SNAP,' Montes, who works at the Greater Chicago Food Depository, said about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. 'Will they have to go back to work?' A little more than a month after Trump signed into law a sweeping Republican domestic package that expanded work requirements for SNAP benefits to previously exempt groups such as adults ages 55 to 64, the state and people receiving benefits are getting ready for a recalibration. Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker's administration is sprinting to figure out how to avoid a potential $700 million price tag by changing operations to achieve a level of payment accuracy that the vast majority of states currently do not meet. At the same time, Illinois also must handle the federally mandated work requirements on new groups that experts say could lead to people losing benefits. 'It would be almost easier if the federal government just did what they set out to do, which is say, 'You are no longer going to be eligible for this program.' But instead, they are putting states on the front line to create bureaucratic barriers to turn individuals and families away,' Grace Hou, the deputy governor covering health and human services, said at a panel discussion in Joliet on Friday. 'These cost savings in the Trump spending bill will result in families getting kicked off their benefits because they can't manage the red tape.' In all, about 1.9 million Illinoisans receive aid through SNAP, which provides assistance for low-income families to buy food. The program's benefits have been fully funded by the federal government for six decades, while the administrative costs have been split between the federal government and states. Monthly benefits in Illinois among people receiving assistance averaged $192 for each member of a household in fiscal 2024, or $6.33 per day, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank. But state officials say the changes written into the new federal law could place hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans at risk of losing those benefits. That jibes with a recent Congressional Budget Office report that estimated about 2.4 million fewer Americans will receive food assistance as a result of the new work requirements. 'Here the state is with less money and more challenge, going to have to take lemons and turn it into lemonade,' said Danielle Perry, vice president of policy and advocacy at the Food Depository, which, on top of its work as a food bank, helps people apply for and keep SNAP benefits. The GOP-led megabill that Trump signed into law July Fourth extends tax breaks that were set to expire and expands spending for the military and border security, funded in part by cuts to SNAP and Medicaid. 'Illinois' goal is to mitigate to the greatest extent possible the impact of the Trump spending bill on the SNAP program, and try to mitigate the harm it's going to wreak on poor families across the state,' Hou said in a separate interview with the Tribune. 'Our administration is going to do everything in our power to quickly put our structures in place to protect Illinois families.' Among the biggest reasons Illinoisans might get cut from SNAP is because of the key provisions in the megabill that initiate new work requirements for recipients who were previously excluded. The GOP bill expanded work requirements for able-bodied adults ages 55 to 64 — the cohort Montes was referring to — and those with dependents age 14 and older, among other groups. About one-third of SNAP recipients in Illinois are in a household with someone older than 60 or who has a disability, according to the progressive CBPP. What's more, many Illinois SNAP recipients have been exempt from work requirements altogether for years because of a waiver tied to unemployment in the state. But that exemption is expected to end this year, as the new bill hikes the state unemployment threshold. States are awaiting guidance from the federal government on the new work requirements, including the timeline for implementation. 'This will create a constant churn of applications as people fall on and off eligibility,' Illinois Department of Human Services spokesperson Rachel Otwell said in an emailed has already included funding in its budget for about 100 new caseworkers and operations staff with IDHS to begin addressing the added paperwork that is expected to be created from the new requirements, as well as changes to Medicaid. Officials with the Pritzker administration said they anticipated earlier this year that they would need additional staff even without knowing the specifics of the Republican-led tax bill. Now, the department is looking into the number of additional staff it might need to deal with SNAP changes, according to the governor's office. Beyond that workload, Illinois faces potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in added costs. The Republican-led bill raises the administrative levy for states, which in Illinois would mean spending an additional $80 million, according to the governor's office. Those costs are expected to kick in October 2026, according to the Center for American Progress think tank. Plus, any further improvements to computer or communications systems will likely cost even more, at a time when the state will likely be looking to keep costs down, said Jeremy Rosen, director of economic justice at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law. But most crucially, Illinois could be on the hook for an additional annual $700 million bill to pay for some of the benefits, according to the governor's office, though that contribution could be eliminated if the state manages to bring down a measure known as the payment error rate. The combination of costs and new requirements puts the state in 'a terrible position,' said Alicia Huguelet, a senior fellow at the CBPP who previously worked as a program administrator at IDHS. As one of several factors that experts use to gauge the success of a state's SNAP program, the payment error rate isn't a measure of fraud, but rather overpayments or underpayments commonly resulting from mistakes by applicants, staff or computer systems. Illinois' error rate is among the 15 worst in the nation, though Pritzker has defended it as comparable to other large states. 'We are working very hard to make sure that we've got a process for determining the eligibility of people, making sure we hit the error rate that we need to as best we can, and we're working very hard every single day to effectuate that, but it's going to take money to do that,' Pritzker said Wednesday, noting to reporters at an unrelated news conference in Springfield that the new requirements do not come with funds for implementation. Efforts to lower the payment error rate can result in people being removed from the food assistance program, Rosen and other experts said — an outcome the state says it's trying to avoid. Still, starting in October, the state said it will be in a yearlong sprint to bring down the error rate measure ahead of cost-sharing measures that go into place after the year is up. If the rate comes down below 6% — from more than 11% currently — by fall 2026, then Illinois could avoid the more than $700 million burden, which would take effect starting in fall 2027. The state has said it can't cover that expected contribution, which is close to the looming transit fiscal cliff or the entire amount by which Illinois increased its operating revenue for the current fiscal year. To bring down the rate, IDHS is using an existing contract with Deloitte to diagnose exactly where those mistakes happen and what changes could be made to the program, according to the governor's office, which did not provide an estimated timeline on those efforts. IDHS is also reviewing its own policies to see how it could reduce the error rate, according to the state. Close to half of the payment errors in Illinois come from inaccurate wage and benefits data, including errors in what people report as their income, the state said. As a result, the governor's office said Illinois is exploring whether it could implement more stringent verifications in some areas, rather than relying on self-reporting, which is typically faster. But trying to bring down the error rate while also needing to implement new work requirements poses a major challenge, experts and the state said. 'If the application process is more stringent … it will be definitely a challenge,' said the Rev. Gary Gaston, CEO at Lessie Bates Davis Neighborhood House, a social services organization that Pritzker visited earlier this summer to highlight the challenges to SNAP. 'People have gotten acclimated to the current process. Any new processes that will be put in place could be challenging.' In the East St. Louis area where Gaston works, people might have difficulty finding work to meet the new requirements, and in some cases also face a lack of transportation options to make appointments, he said. On top of that, the area is already considered a food desert, with no major grocery store in the city — 'a double whammy,' he said. Demanding more information and verification up front can make it harder for people to access benefits, which is likely to result in some people losing benefits, Rosen at the Shriver Center said. The Pritzker administration, for its part, argues that the loss of benefits that could come from efforts to reduce the error rate is an intentional move by the Trump administration to reduce benefits and, in turn, lower the cost of the program to the federal government. Still, the state said it's working to reduce the rate in a way that keeps as many people as possible from losing benefits, as lowering the measure is the only way to avoid the massive potential $700 million bill. 'We want to make sure that we're actually delivering to the maximum number of people that need SNAP,' Pritzker told reporters Wednesday at the state fair, emphasizing that both underpayments and overpayments are considered errors. 'Republicans don't care that we're under-providing. They just want to cut everybody off of SNAP, and that is why they've set this SNAP error rate so low.' Haywood Talcove, CEO for government at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, said he wants to see Illinois and other states simplify their application process for benefits — in an effort to both reduce fraud and improve the experience for people who need benefits — from lengthy paperwork with many self-reported boxes to basic identification information and verification. Republicans have cited fraud and waste as reasons to crack down on parts of the benefits program, and Talcove, who is based in Washington, testified at a Republican-led congressional hearing this year about benefits fraud. If states are pouring millions into benefits and changes to the program, Talcove said, 'I'd like you to fix it, please.' The governor's office has noted that SNAP fraud is not the same as the error rate and that any fraud comes out of $4.7 billion in SNAP benefits that the state issues each year. Statewide, Illinois found about 0.07% of SNAP cases had an intentional program violation, which would have resulted in an IDHS penalty and potentially a court penalty, according to the governor's office. Additionally, there were more than 23,000 claims that benefits were stolen from recipients last year and an estimated $12.5 million in that type of fraud, according to a report from IDHS to the General Assembly. Rosen of the Shriver Center said the state should aim to get the information it needs, 'without being in a world where we make people bring so much stuff so often that they fall off the program.' 'Because inevitably somebody's kid gets sick, so they miss the appointment, and they can't take the three-hour bus ride to get to the office, the website doesn't work and they can't upload something. Those are not good reasons for people to be cut off who are eligible,' he said. In six years at the food bank and more than two decades working in social services, Montes said SNAP has felt 'stable, as far as the rules are concerned.' Now, even the work requirements by themselves are 'going to isolate many people from food, from accessing food, just that alone,' she said. 'Personally, it scares me.'
Miami Herald
2 days ago
- Miami Herald
Walmart gives employees a generous new perk
Walmart, the world's largest retailer, has long been criticized for paying its employees wages so low that many must rely on public assistance programs to make ends meet. A 2020 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report revealed that millions of full-time workers earning poverty-level wages qualify for federal benefits such as Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); Walmart was among the top employers of SNAP and Medicaid recipients in the states included in the report, according to the Los Angeles Times. Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter Of course, many other large retail and food businesses have been found to underpay their workers, shifting the burden of supporting low-wage employees onto taxpayers. Amazon (AMZN) and McDonald's (MCD) are big organizations with significant numbers of employees who depend on assistance programs. (The U.S. Military, while not a private corporation, is another massive organization with many members who rely on government assistance.) Critics point out that taxpayers effectively subsidize employees' wages at profitable corporations, allowing these companies to maintain low labor costs while raking in substantial profits. This situation raises questions about the fairness of a system where taxpayers support corporate profits through public assistance programs. Employees and worker advocates alike have criticized Walmart, and the company is trying to improve its employees' financial well-being. The company introduced initiatives like the "Live Better U" program, which offers employees affordable education and skills training. The latest Walmart (WMT) employee perk is a 10% discount on groceries, and it's meant to ease employees' financial strain. Walmart announced on LinkedIn changes to its Walmart Associate Discount Card and will offer all U.S. employees the discount on groceries, including meat and dairy. Previously the discount was offered only during the holidays. The program applies to both full- and part-time employees. It is intended to help with the rising costs of food and household essentials affecting nearly every U.S. citizen. Related: $4 Trader Joe's bags are going viral (again), so grab one while you can Additionally, Walmart has raised its starting wages in certain locations and implemented bonuses for long-term employees. However, some worker advocates argue that these measures are insufficient and that a more comprehensive approach, including higher base wages and improved benefits, is necessary to reduce workers' dependence on public assistance. The Walmart program has plenty of critics. They point out that perks and discounts are helpful but do not replace fair compensation. Walmart's starting wages in the U.S. currently range from $15 to $17 per hour; every state has a different minimum wage. This rate is well above the federal minimum of $7.25, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, but is still often insufficient to cover the cost of living in many parts of the country, especially for employees who are supporting families. Even full-time workers at the upper end of the hourly scale may struggle with rent, health care, and child care costs, forcing them to turn to government programs to fill the gap. More Retail: Walmart CEO sounds alarm on a big problem for customersTarget makes a change that might scare Walmart, CostcoTop investor takes firm stance on troubled retail brandWalmart and Costco making major change affecting all customers The new grocery discount may provide immediate relief for Walmart employees, but it does not solve the systemic challenge of inadequate pay. Inflation and the cost of living continue to rise, so every little bit helps, and some see Walmart's move as a potential model. Others point out that perks are no substitute for a living wage. Related: Trader Joe's quietly pulls popular product, confuses fans The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
