Mississippi is withdrawing from a federal program to feed children during their summer break from school, the governor there announced, characterizing the decision as a way to reject “attempts to expand the welfare state”.

Governor Tate Reeves, a Republican, declined to participate in the federal program that would give electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards to low-income families to supplement food costs when academic classes are out of session, Mississippi Today reported.

Eligible families would have received $40 a month, or a total of $120 to account for the break between school terms.

However, Mississippi’s welfare agency undercut Reeves’s reasoning, saying the state does not have the capacity to administer the program.

“Both [the Mississippi department of education] and [its department of human services] lack the resources, including workforce capacity and funding, to support a summer EBT program,” a spokesperson for the state human services department, Mark Jones, said.

Reeves’s latest comments ignited fierce backlash.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, a scholar and creator of the 1619 Project, criticized Reeves’s decision as “cruelty”.

“The cruelty of being the poorest state in America and choosing – choosing – to turn down federal aid for poor children to eat,” Hannah-Jones said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Keith Boykin, author and co-founder of the National Black Justice Coalition, said funds earmarked for welfare in Mississippi have previously gone to superfluous objectives, including the construction of a sports stadium.

“Mississippi gave millions of dollars of welfare funds to former NFL quarterback Brett Favre to build a volleyball facility for his daughter’s school, but they won’t take federal funds to feed hungry children. Because helping poor kids is the kind of welfare that Republicans hate,” Boykin said on X.

Reeves is one of 15 Republican governors who have rejected the federally funded food program meant to help feed children during the summer, the New York Times reported.

Other states that have opted out of the program include Alabama, Oklahoma, Alaska, Florida, South Carolina, South Dakota, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Vermont and Wyoming.

More than 8 million children will be shut out of the federal food assistance program, which provides $2.5bn in assistance to families who qualify for free or reduced lunch.

In addition to Reeves, the Iowa governor, Kim Reynolds, also announced in December that Iowa would not be participating in the program.

Reynolds claimed that the federal assistance program was not a “long-term” solution. She also claimed that an EBT card “does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic”.

The Nebraska governor, Jim Pillen, who has also rejected federal funding, said he does not “believe in welfare”, the Washington Post reported.