Summer Sun Bucks program launches for the second year in Maryland, giving cash directly to low-income families to help them afford groceries while school is out and school-provided meals are not available. (Photo by Danielle J. Brown/Maryland Matters). (Photo by Danielle J. Brown/Maryland Matters).
Maryland distributed more than $23 million at the end of June to help the families of more than a half-million low-income children afford food this summer while school is out.
The payments, $40 per kid per month, mark the kickoff of the second summer of the state’s Sun Bucks program, a newer federal grocery benefit that provides food assistance to families struggling with food insecurity, helping them replace school meals that students in low-income families often rely on.
The program is expected to help about 579,000 children this summer.
“What Sun Bucks does is it puts groceries on the tables for families when our students are out of school during summer break,” Human Services Secretary Rafael López said in a recent interview. “We want to make sure that every kid, every child throughout the state of Maryland taps those resources for June, July and August.”
Lopez is excited to oversee the second year of Maryland Sun Bucks and continue last year’s efforts, when more than 600,000 Maryland kids received $120 over the course of the summer to help afford groceries, totaling to $72 million in benefits issued.
Hanging over his excitement, however, was the looming budget reconciliation bill that won final congressional approval Thursday. Among many cuts in the nearly 900-page bill is a $230 billion reduction in food assistance programs over 10 years.
Human Services Secretary Rafael J. Lopez. (Photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters).
For now, López said, Sun Bucks is funded for this summer, meaning that families in the program can count on getting Sun Bucks assistance for groceries through the end of August.
“Maryland Sun Bucks” is the kid-friendly name for the state’s Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer Program, which offers families $40 per month per child to spend on groceries when school is out. The U.S. Department of Agriculture launched Sun Bucks last year, and Maryland was one of dozens of states that volunteered to administer the program.
This year, Maryland is one of 37 states participating in Sun Bucks, along with Washington, D.C., several U.S. territories and tribes in Oklahoma.
Thousands of kids in low-income families lose access to free meals from their schools when students are released for summer break. Families often struggle to afford food to replace those meals during the summer months, leading to a phenomenon known as “summer hunger.”
“We know that a lot of kids receive the bulk of their meals during the school year,” said LaMonika Jones, interim president for Maryland Hunger Solutions. “Sun Bucks … are guaranteed ways that we can make sure that kids who reside in food-insecure households — that they’re able to receive that nutrition that they are not receiving in the same way that they would during the school year with school meals.”
Future of Sun Bucks threatened
Over 90% of families who qualify for Sun Bucks are enrolled automatically because they already qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or similar benefits. That makes the recently passed budget bill major concern for advocates and state officials.
Sun Bucks is not directly mentioned in the budget reconciliation bill. But advocates say increased eligibility requirements for SNAP, as well as reduced funding, will have ripple effects on programs like Sun Bucks.
“When you look at some of the provisions within the budget bill, knowing that SNAP is used to determine eligibility for Sun Bucks … we’re putting at risk these children that reside in SNAP households,” Jones said.
“For students that are automatically certified for Sun Bucks, we’re using their SNAP household data,” she said. “If those households are no longer eligible for SNAP, then that means we have a large number of students … that we now have to send through additional hoops and hurdles in order to feed their families during summer, when we know hunger is most challenging.”
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The budget reconciliation bill, which President Donald Trump is scheduled to sign into law Friday afternoon, will also make running SNAP more costly for the state, which could further jeopardize funding for food assistance programs as the state tries to offset higher administration costs.
The Maryland Department of Human Services estimates that the bill would require $412.5 million more in state funds to operate SNAP at current levels. The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill calls on the state to contribute up to 15% of SNAP funds, and 75% in administrative costs. Currently, administrative costs are shared 50/50 between the state and federal governments, and thefeds cover all of the funding for the benefit itself.
“What we’re looking at is having to balance the ability to administer these benefits and then take the cost of that – which unfortunately means that states will have to make a really hard decision,” Jones said, noting that some states like Texas already plan to end their Sun Bucks programs due to the increased costs of administering SNAP.
López says state officials are still “trying to get our head around these impacts.”
“They are massive. They will be felt across the state,” he said. That said, he noted that most of the cuts will not be felt until next year or later.
“It will take a little bit of time for those cuts to be experienced. But at the end of the day, they are still cuts to benefits for Marylanders,” López said. “This year, Sun Bucks are paid for. This year, SNAP benefits are paid for.”