When I spoke to Mandi Remington in late January, she had $7 in her bank account and had run out of milk. At times like these, which happen toward the end of most months, she cobbles together “stone soup” from what’s in the house, she said, or feeds her three children and then makes her own meal from whatever is left on their plates. 

So when she found out that Iowa, where she lives in Iowa City, is among the 15 states that decided not to participate in Summer EBT, a new federal food program that would have sent her $40 a month per child while they were out of school, “it was extremely frustrating,” she said. As a single parent who doesn’t receive child support, Remington struggles to make ends meet. Her $55,000 annual salary as a medical records clerk at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics “does not leave much leftover for gas in the car […]