Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer
Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer
When the COVID pandemic hit, Georgia’s school-aged children were sent home to learn remotely. However, children who receive free and reduced meals at the state’s 2,250 schools and day care centers were left potentially hungry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture responded to this need with a new Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program, administered by the Georgia Division of Family & Children Services (DFCS), to ensure the eligible families received the money they needed to feed the children.
No one state agency had the data or infrastructure in place to implement the P-EBT program. Experts within the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies helped to bridge this data gap and quickly build a data solution. The Georgia Health Policy Center brought expertise in developing adaptive solutions with state partners and research design skills to work with the Department of Education to develop and administer the school learning mode survey, while Georgia Policy Labs incorporated the results into a data system that also included other Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program data. By mid-November 2021, DFCS distributed more than $1 billion in P-EBT funds to feed children in roughly 800,000 Georgia families.