Why 35% of Colorado's Summer EBT Went Unspent

When Colorado families left roughly a third of Summer EBT benefits on the table last year, the headline read as a program shortfall. But the more useful reading is diagnostic: the money was there, the eligibility was there, and yet the take-up was not. That gap between appropriation and redemption is where the real workforce and food-security story lives.

Summer EBT was designed to close the hunger gap that opens when school meals disappear. For working families, especially those in hourly or seasonal jobs, the benefit is a quiet wage supplement — money that frees up grocery budgets and reduces the stress that follows parents into their shifts. When that money goes unclaimed, it is not just a missed meal; it is a missed stabilization tool for the very households the program targets.

Friction, Not Need, Explains the Gap

The likeliest culprits are administrative and behavioral, not economic. Families who qualify automatically may still miss the card in the mail, misplace it, or fail to activate it before the window closes. Others may not know they are eligible at all, particularly in households where parents work nonstandard hours and have little time to parse enrollment notices. Stigma also plays a role — some families treat the benefit as a form of assistance they would rather decline, even when they qualify.

For Colorado's workforce, the cost of that friction is concrete. Parents who worry about food insecurity are more likely to miss shifts, turn down overtime, or cycle through jobs. Every unspent dollar is a lever that was never pulled. The fix is not more funding; it is better plumbing — automatic enrollment, clearer outreach, and simpler redemption. Until the state treats unclaimed benefits as a delivery failure rather than a budget surplus, the program will keep underperforming its own promise.