School lunch has been popping up in the news lately, and not just because students are starting to head back to the classroom.
The federal government has been buying students lunch since 1946, when President Harry S. Truman signed the National School Lunch Act. The idea was to provide food to needy school-age children while using surplus crops, which would help prop up food prices.
When Vice President Kamala Harris picked Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate this month, the issue of “universal school meals” entered the spotlight because last year, Mr. Walz signed a bill that allowed public schools to provide all students with free breakfast and lunch. It made his state one of eight that offer free meals to students regardless of family income. The concept, which tends to be more popular with Democrats than Republicans, is likely to become an issue in the presidential contest.
So what exactly does “universal school meals” mean?
Essentially, a school district provides a free breakfast and lunch to every student who physically attends a public school (and, in some cases, charter schools), regardless of need. It’s often referred to as “healthy school meals for all.” Most of the money comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which dictates the nutritional requirements for each meal. State and sometimes local dollars fill in the gaps.
Although the idea has long been promoted by some educators, nutritionists and people working to improve the quality of school food, only a handful of states offer free meals to all. New York City has offered free school breakfast and lunch since 2017.
How many children eat free school meals?
On an average day during the 2022-23 school year, about 11.1 million children ate a free breakfast provided by a public or charter school, and 19 million children ate a free school lunch, according to the U.S.D.A. Another 1.6 million ate breakfast or lunch for a reduced price — 30 cents for breakfast and 40 cents for lunch.
How do most districts pay for it?
Think of school cafeterias as restaurants that operate as independent businesses. Federal, state or local money that flows into districts to run their schools does not automatically include funding for the cafeterias.
The cafeteria budget comes from a complex federal formula that determines reimbursements based on each child’s financial circumstance. It can be as high as $4.54 if a child qualifies for a free meal, or as little as 42 cents. The cost includes paying staff to prepare the meal and determining who qualifies for free or reduced meals. Typically, children receive free meals if their household’s income is less than 130 percent of the poverty line. Lunch can cost them as little as 40 cents if their household income falls between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty line. All other children pay full price, or about $3 for lunch at most schools.
Why is the issue coming up now?
The popularity of universal school food rose when the Covid pandemic hit. In 2020, the Trump administration decided to provide free school meals to all students. The program expired in the fall of 2022, and districts began charging for meals.
Some states liked universal school food so much that they added state money to the federal cash, and continued to offer everyone a school breakfast and lunch without cost. In addition to Minnesota, Colorado, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico and Vermont offer some form of universal school food. All but Vermont have Democratic governors.
At least 28 other states and the District of Columbia have since tried to lower or fully eliminate the eligibility requirements for free school meals. Some bills, including ones in South Dakota and Wisconsin, have died. Others, like bills in Oregon and Rhode Island, are working their way through the legislature or have been held for further study.
What are the arguments for free school food?
Free school meals can ease hunger, and help families who may not be poor enough to meet federal requirements but can’t afford to pay full price. By providing them to all, school districts can find better uses — like buying better food — for money and staff time that was spent vetting applications for free lunch and managing who gets what kind of meal.
Free school meals lead to better performance in class and can help rectify racial inequities. They also open the door for more creative approaches that might cost less in the long run, like buying more local food and providing healthy meals with less meat.
Universal school food can prevent “lunch shaming,” a term that has become popular to describe what happens to families with unpaid school-meal debt. A student might go through the cafeteria line, but have the meal taken away in front of other students because the family lunch account has an outstanding balance. Sometimes, a child with school-lunch debt will be given a substitute, like a peanut butter sandwich.
The argument is that schools foot the cost of computers and desks. So why not food, which is essential to learning?
What are the arguments against free meals?
Cost is a big one. In one Minnesota school district, the numbers of students who have decided to eat at school has risen by as much as 30 percent since the schools stopped charging. Breakfast participation rose by about 50 percent. As a result, Governor Walz cautioned lawmakers in December to adjust their spending expectations because the program was going to cost $81 million more over the next two years due in part to food cost increases and participation levels.
Some Minnesota lawmakers have said that the state should not be paying for the children of wealthy families to eat free, and other conservatives have argued that the federal school lunch program is filled with inefficiencies and possibly fraud.
Would universal school lunch be part of a Harris administration if she is elected?
The Harris-Walz campaign has not addressed this directly, but there is a good chance it would adopt such a program. Ms. Harris has long pushed legislation to help working families and lower the cost of child care. She supports local agriculture and programs that provide quality food to the poor.
The Biden administration has expanded the community eligibility provision in the federal school-food program, which had allowed schools or entire districts where at least 40 percent of students are poor enough to qualify for federal meals to provide free breakfast and lunch to all. In September, the threshold dropped to 25 percent. Parents don’t have the burden of extra forms to fill out, and the school doesn’t have to spend time processing applications.
What about a Trump administration?
Although Mr. Trump’s administration extended the Covid-era free lunch waivers, it’s much less likely that he would support universal school meals. A recent budget proposal by House Republicans called for eliminating the school-food community eligibility provision, which about 40,000 schools use. They suggested replacing it with state block grants for child nutrition programs. Although Mr. Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for the next Republican president, the document states that federal school-meal programs “increasingly resemble entitlement programs that have strayed far from their original objective and represent an example of the ever-expanding federal footprint in local school operations.”
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