Louisiana could soon be forced to pay an extra $95 million or more each year for federal food assistance thanks to a change in federal law. A new issue brief from Invest in Louisiana’s Tia Fields explains why these changes come at a tumultuous time for Louisiana’s public benefits program, as the Legislature is considering several measures that could complicate the state’s efforts to comply with the federal directives:

Senate Bill 462 by Sen. Patrick McMath seeks to abolish the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) by Oct. 1, and transfer its duties to the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH). … Moving complex household data and transitioning thousands of employees between departments—precisely when the federal government is monitoring every miskeyed digit—represents a high-stakes fiscal risk. Data migration errors during this transition could potentially push Louisiana into the 10% penalty tier, doubling the state’s liability to $200 million.

The Working Parents Tax Relief Act 

The Earned Income Tax Credit  helps people who work, but earn low incomes, and returns money back to communities. Joe Hughes of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy explains how a new EITC proposal in Congress would help families deal with rising costs:

  • The bill would expand the EITC by increasing the maximum possible credit by $5,500 for up to 3 children under age 4.
  • About 10 million adults and 8 million children across the nation would benefit from this change in 2026.
  • The average tax cut for households affected by the bill would be nearly $4,500 a year.
  • The bill is targeted to working-class families, with 70 percent of the benefit going to households in the bottom 40 percent of income earners and nearly all (97 percent) going to the bottom 60 percent.

Schools can help combat food insecurity

Roughly 1 in 4 Louisiana kids are food insecure, meaning they have inadequate access to safe or nutritious food. Elyse Carmosino of The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate spoke with Lindsay Hendrix, chief impact officer at Second Harvest Food Bank about Louisiana’s high rates of food insecurity and how it impacts a child’s development at school:

Usually those kids have trouble focusing. There’s often sleepiness, lethargy, and they aren’t able to perform well on tests or in their lessons because they’re not retaining the information they’re being taught. There’s also evidence that shows a food insecure child may be sick more often, so they miss more classes. It’s a lot of disruption in the child’s day. Ultimately, it negatively impacts their ability to succeed as they move along in school and life. 

There are ways schools can help address food insecurity:

They can make sure that a family is going through the qualification process for free and reduced meals and make sure the child is actually participating in those meals. For a lot of schools, free and reduced meals are a big part of the day. Making sure that a child who is food insecure is able to access breakfast is important, as is being mindful of how the school sets up their day.

Visa delay threatens health care in underserved areas 

A federal waiver program allows foreign doctors who train in the U.S. to stay in the country as they transition from their temporary visas. The doctors are required to work in underserved areas for three years. But a current backlog in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is hurting this health care initiative. Arielle Zionts of KFF Health News explains:

[Immigration attorneys] said the foreign physicians will likely have to return to their home countries if their applications don’t advance to [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ] by July 30. For them to reenter the U.S., their employers would have to pay a new $100,000 fee associated with the H-1B work visa. It’s a cost that many hospitals and clinics in rural and underserved areas say they can’t afford. “That’s the cliff that this train is headed for,” said Charles Wintersteen, a Chicago-based attorney who specializes in health workforce-related immigration.

HHS has not explained the backlog or said when it will be fixed. 

Number of the Day

$14,000 – Median cost of a C-section in the United States, compared to just $4,000 in peer nations. (Source: International Federation of Health Plans; Health Care Cost Institute via the Wall Street Journal)