The Michigan Program at a Glance

Michigan was the first state whose request to establish a P-EBT program was approved by the Food and Nutrition Service at USDA. The program was run through the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), in collaboration with the Michigan Department of Education.

Michigan’s DHHS determined that the most efficient method for distributing P-EBT funds would be through its existing SNAP program and using data from the Department of Education. This decision eliminated the need for families whose children received NSLP benefits to submit applications. DHHS established customer service lines to answer any questions and brought those not already receiving SNAP into the SNAP system.

The State of Michigan harnessed existing infrastructure and Department of Education data to distribute new P-EBT funds. School districts send student information to the Michigan Department of Education, whichmaintains a database of every child’s information, including their eligibility for NSLP and their address. They were able to share this information with the DHHS and also took on the responsibility of combing through cases and trying to proactively correct mistakes. For example, if information was incomplete, employees with the Department of Education would call to verify recipients’ information.Families could also call the Department of Education to verify information. This meant that DHHS received the highest quality information possible, and when data was incomplete, they could request that the Michigan Department of Education investigate.

Families who were already receiving food assistance had additional P-EBT funds added to their existing EBT Card. For those children in households not already receiving assistance, households were sent a new P-EBT card. The state did not require an application, and parents did not need to fill out any forms to determine eligibility. As a result, the Michigan DHHS was able to distribute the first round of cards in April. In total, families received $376.20 per eligible child over the course of four months.

Of the 900,000 students that received P-EBT allotments in Michigan, only 5,000 cards have been returned so far. This group either had outdated or incomplete data in the Department of Education database. When a card was returned, they were put on a list for verification at the school level, so that the information could be corrected in the Department of Education database.