New Mexico low-income families to receive Pandemic EBT card

Some families in New Mexico can expect to receive hundreds of dollars this week to help pay for groceries.

Approximately 70% of public school students in New Mexico are eligible to receive free or reduced lunch. COVID-19 school closures left parents wondering how they were gonna feed their children while they were at home.

The New Mexico Human Services Department announced that about 168,000 families whose children receive free or reduced-price lunch at school will receive $67 million in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.

The HSD announced that every student that was eligible for free or reduced lunch will receive $5.70 for each weekday that they would have been in school from March 16 through June 19.

In total, each student will receive $399 in nutritional assistance.

The benefits will be issued on Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer cards or P-EBT’s and will be addressed to the oldest child in each household.

The card will work like a normal EBT and can be used to purchase food at any store that accepts EBT. If you already have an EBT card, those funds will be transferred directly into your account.

If you don’t, the P-EBT will be mailed to the address that your child's school district has on file.

If your child already receives free meals at school, they are already enrolled in P-EBT.

Some of this money has already been distributed to families, but for families that qualify and haven’t received their money yet, they can expect their P-EBT cards to arrive in the mail sometime this week.

For the latest updates on COVID-19 in our area and around the world, head to our coronavirus section.

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