child care - Digital Library Collections

.... ....;;.c H I L D N U TR IT I ON
School lunch program holding steady. The past
year was a relatively quiet one for the school lunch
program. The welfare law made no significant
changes in the program, and it continues to grow,
largely in tandem with the growth in school enrollment.
USDA data show that between FY 1994 and
FY 1997, school lunch participation rose 5 percent,
to serve 1.3 million more children on an
average day.
Moving Forward: A 1998 Agenda
for Action
Number of opportunities to help children receive
more adequate food and nutritional assisance
should present themselves in 1998. The
federal government will consider reinstating food
stamp eligibility for some categories of poor legal
immigrants, including families with children. This
is a badly needed step. In addition, states across the
country, many of which are flush with budget surpluses,
can fill further gaps by reinstating food
stamp aid to more legal immigrants. Some improvements
in child nutrition programs also are
likely to be considered at the federal level, when
Congress reauthorizes the programs in 1998.
Priorities for 1998 include:
• Enacting federal legislation to restore food
stamps for legal immigrants. The Clinton Administration
has proposed in its FY 1999
budget to reinstate food stamp eligibility for
several categories of low-income legal immigrants,
including families with children who
would be eligible for food stamps were it not
for their immigrant status. The national antihunger
organizations and the national organizations
that help immigrants have made passage
of the Administration's proposals their
highest priority for this year. The proposals
would restore $2.4 billion in food stamp assistance
for legal immigrants over the next five
years. Securing enactment will be an uphill
battle, and it is possible that Congress could
restore food stamps for certain categories of
legal immigrants who are elderly or disabled
but fail to help legal immigrant children. Advocates
need to press for the restoration of benefits
for needy immigrant families with children.
• Enacting state legislation to restore food stamps
to legal immigrants. Action by states to help
meet the needs of poor legal immigrants is also
important ifthe federal government fails to act.
States such as Florida and Texas that have
agreed to fund food stamp benefits only for
legal immigrants who are elderly or have disabilities
should be urged to extend this protection
to children and, if possible, their parents.
States that have not yet acted should be prodded
to provide some relief. When states pay for
food stamp assistance for legal immigrant
children or for legal immigrant families with
children, the funds count toward a state's
maintenance-of-effort requirement under the
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
(TANF) block grant. This gives states an additional
incentive to provide food stamps to legal
immigrant children.
• Rectifying problems in state food stamp procedures.
A coordinated effort is needed to morutor
state procedures for providing food stamp
assistance to families moving off welfare or
being diverted when they seek to enroll. Children's
advocacy groups and state advocates for
low-income groups should work in concert
with USDA to keep poor families from missing
out on the opportunity to apply for food assistance
or improperly losing food stamps when
they stop receiving cash welfare benefits. A
number of states may need to modify their
administrative systems to eliminate such
problems.
• Revising federal reimbursement policies for
meals served to children in child care settings.
As changes in the welfare system and other
developments push more low-income mothers
into the labor force, more families need afterschool
or before-school child care. Two shortcomings
in federal nutrition programs should
be remedied. First, they are set up in a way
that may discourage some schools from applying
for reimbursement for meals they serve in
CHI L D R EN'S D E FEN S E FUN D 61