The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 authorized Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children (Summer EBT) as a permanent federal food assistance entitlement program beginning in summer 2024. Summer EBT has been tested through evaluations of demonstration projects since 2011. With pending implementation of this new program, this is an appropriate time to reflect on what USDA, FNS research has learned through more than a decade of study.

This study develops standard methodologies that might be used to construct standard utility allowances, which are used by States as part of the SNAP eligibility and benefit determination.

The analysis conducted in this study builds on these two strands of the literature and uses three alternate definitions of breakfast: Consumption of any food or beverage. Breakfast intake of food energy greater than 10 percent of the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA). Consumption of foods from at least two of five main food groups and intake of food energy greater than 10 percent of the RDA.