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I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

• dredmorbius 2y ago
  NB: Title from HTML source due to clickbait. The story stands on its own without such tactics.
• pragmatic 2y ago
  “ families who qualify but don’t complete the paperwork for various reasons, ranging from language barriers to pride to bureaucratic overwhelm.” Fear of legal action against them. Giving all kids a hot meal is a no brainer eat win for society. We gave it to them, then took it back.
• M3L0NM4N 2y ago
  Is the overhead in deciding who gets free lunch and who doesn't and then managing the debt really saving more money than just giving all public school kids free lunches with no strings attached?
  • monkpit 2y ago
    Incentivized because it’s privatized
  • dsr_ 2y ago
    If you throw in the effects on school attendance and participation, yes. Massachusetts extended the free school lunch (and breakfast) program to all students in 2023. Here's the report on 2024: https://www.mass.gov/doc/universal-free-school-mealsfinal070124/download https://www.mass.gov/doc/universal-free-school-mealsfinal070... It's nominally 20 pages but the first five are boilerplate and ToC and the last ten are a listing of how much each school district received, so you could reasonably read all the actual report.
  • klodolph 2y ago
    You can look at stats from NYC: https://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/if-no-student-pays-cost-to-provide-free-lunch-for-all-of-new-york-citys-elementary-school-students.html https://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/if-no-student-pays-cost... The report used 2014-2015 numbers, where the cost of lunches for elementary students was $102 million and the participation rate was 57%. It estimates that universal free lunch would cost the city an additional $5.2 million. Part of the costs would be offset by federal reimbursements, so the full estimate is higher than $5.2… the details are in the report. So yes, it would cost more to make it free for everyone. I still think it should be free for everyone, but it is hard to argue that you can save money that way.
    • dahart 2y ago
      So maybe $5M on a NY state education budget of nearly $40B, or less than two hundredths of one percent. Isn’t it weird that we pay for everything else but keep the food in a separate accounting budget?
      • klodolph 2y ago
        You’re comparing the NY state education budget against a program for elementary school students in NYC using numbers from different decades. If you want better numbers, a good place to start would be to take total cost per student for a given year and the cost per lunch for the same year, and multiply cost per lunch by number of days and some participation rate %.
        • dahart 2y ago
          Which decades? Are you saying the $5M number is too small because this article was from 2017, and I used budget from 2024? Okay, the NY state budget in 2017 was a bit over $25B. That actually still leaves the answer at two hundredths of one percent, since I rounded up and left lots of room for error. ;) I was more or less trying to do what you suggest, but without getting stuck doing research until next week. I could be off by a factor of 10 or even 100 without the point having a significantly different summary, right? Even if we did exactly what you suggest, and even if the numbers were more accurate, the outcome doesn’t change: it’s weird to account for lunch outside of the rest of the system, when lunch is such a tiny minuscule cost, it could be funded without blinking.
  • internetter 2y ago
    Without reading into lunch specifically, I'd very much be inclined to say yes. The reason is, I spent many hours researching the fair structure of my transit agency. Fares that have, obviously, been in the news for being harming to low income citizens. What I found was that the city spent almost 1 billion on upgrading their collection systems, whereas the yearly revenue from those same systems amounted to 1/10th of that. It is very likely that these new systems will actually reduce revenue, as the agency has admitted. Not to mention the operational overhead of waiting for people to tap as they get on. I strongly believe in social democracies, but our governments are awful at spending our money. https://boehs.org/node/free-the-t https://boehs.org/node/free-the-t
    • mjevans 2y ago
      I suspect the only real benefit is a change in behavior of some passengers. They _paid_ for a thing and therefore feel more respectful towards it. Which would be related to the other symptomatic reasons such a barrier might be sought. As a society my country (USA) sadly has low respect for the commons generally. There's a lack of investment (not none, but not enough), a sense of 'me-ism' entitlement in the population (as if sharing and consideration of others shouldn't mutually be the priority for a public space), and unwillingness to address national scale issues that lead to blights upon the commons (mostly thinking of people society has failed). None of those are easy enough to fix that a reasonably sized reply could even begin to adequately cover a solution, but those problems are some reasons why a gated access to a public resource might be sought other than as a form of funding.
      • internetter 2y ago
        While I do not deny that this might very well be a problem, it feels fallacious on the part of the American public. One, they are indirectly paying for it already by way of taxation. Two, I'd argue it is much better to be respectful towards things you didn't pay for.
        • mjevans 2y ago
          We agree. Including to not respect things someone (indirectly) paid for through taxation. Part of the me-ism issue I called out in the larger post.
  • tantalor 2y ago
    Pittsburgh Public Schools started doing this (free breakfast & lunch) in 2014: https://www.pghschools.org/departments/food-services/free-meals https://www.pghschools.org/departments/food-services/free-me... This program replaces free & reduced-price lunch for qualifying kids, with "free for everybody". They directly cite reasons like increased participation and better service (faster lines). It also cuts down on administrative overhead (don't need to separately qualify each kid). Another benefit is kids are not shamed for getting free lunch, since everybody gets a free lunch. It is a USDA program: https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/cep https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/cep I'm genuinely worried the current administration will decide it is a waste of money, or woke, or some other BS.
    • dzdt 2y ago
      Indeed universal free lunch programs are on the chopping block. To my understanding the cuts are still at the proposal stage though. [1] https://www.chalkbeat.org/2025/03/12/house-republican-budget-would-slash-free-school-meals-for-many-students/ https://www.chalkbeat.org/2025/03/12/house-republican-budget...
      • tantalor 2y ago
        Thanks, I hate it
  • Kapura 2y ago
    I feel like there's the administrative overhead, but also every child having food when they are learning is sure to be a profound positive externality. The only outcome of having kids to go to school hungry or receive substandard education is keeping the poorer classes of society "in their place." This is very gross.
    • piva00 2y ago
      The issue is that the positive externality is really hard to measure, and penny-pinching policies only care about what is easily measured, it's just another instance of the McNamara fallacy. As a non-American, reading about the welfare rules in the USA feels absurd, there are so many overlapping programs with distinct qualifications, rules, payouts, it simply cannot be efficient to keep track of all of that for recipients. It feels like the design is to make it as hard as possible to keep track of what one is eligible to, it's designed to be painful and unreliable. There is a cultural thing in the USA about punishing poor people, as if it's only through their own failure of character that they are poor, instead of trying to help lift the less fortunate ones the approach seems to be to punish them in the hopes that will force them out of their precarious position through some heroic individual action. It simply isn't reasonable or has any basis in reality, probably some weird cultural leftover from the religious nuts who founded the country.
      • Kapura 2y ago
        You shouldn't have to measure the fact that feeding children does good, and you should push back against anybody who thinks you should (because they clearly don't want all children to eat, a strong signal of fucked up morality).
        • horacemorace 2y ago
          This so much. My HCOL area uses a hybrid approach: kids can always eat regardless and can run up huge $$$ tabs. The parents get pestered once it gets over a few hundred.
        • piva00 2y ago
  • insane_dreamer 2y ago
    I would say yes. In our state all public school kids are eligible for free lunch by just signing up. What's the worst that can happen? Some parents who could afford lunch get it for free? I'd rather my tax dollars go to that than going to a whole bureaucracy designed to ensure that only those who "deserve" it get it. As far as "rich people are getting free lunches!!!" argument. 1) rich people for the most part send their kids to private, not public schools. 2) rich people who can afford better lunches than the school lunch are going to send their kid to school with a lunch.
  • AzzyHN 2y ago
    Cruelty is the point sometimes as well
    • reassess_blind 2y ago
      Who’s cruelty, and what’s the motivation?
  • petesergeant 2y ago
    Yes, but that's Socialism, and son, this is an America.
  • tmpz22 2y ago
    While we bicker this inane question a much vaster sum is being transferred to the ultra wealthy from the public coffers. Penny Rich Dollar Poor.
  • scotty79 2y ago
    Food is way cheaper than any work. But the way it is today more people can sit in their bullshit jobs and use them as excuse to get money.
• thinkingtoilet 2y ago
  It's astonishing this is a thing. I'm thankful to live in Massachusetts where all kids can get lunch for free with no questions asked. Where I live, kids can get breakfast too, however I've heard that isn't universal in the state. The article points out another issue that is so widespread. Often times, being right above or below a cut off line can make a huge difference and it's kids just above the cut off line here that are suffering. I have a brother with disabilities and there are "lines" drawn all the time with funding that are either all or nothing. If you cross a line, you lose funding. It encourages them to work less, save less money, and be more reliant on state funding. Why haven't we figured out gradients yet? For example, above this line you get 90% of costs covered. Above this line 80%. Above this line 70%. etc... etc... etc...
  • candiddevmike 2y ago
    During COVID, school lunch was free, and most school served free bag lunches over the summer too. That ended in June 2022. Congress could've kept it going for a pittance, but alas...
    • thinkingtoilet 2y ago
      That's what happened in MA. It was COVID that started the program and then we kept it up because we're decent people.
      • ryandrake 2y ago
        A lot of the country, majorities in many states, are not decent people.
    • humanrebar 2y ago
      State government, local government, and local philanthropy (like the chamber of commerce, etc.) could also buy lunch. I'd rather keep the dysfunction of national politics away from my kids' food, personally. At least I can reasonably move if local dysfunction goes past tolerable levels.
    • 2y ago
• msravi 2y ago
  Do different kids get different meals in US schools? I mean for non-medical or dietary purposes? The article doesn't seem to be very clear on that... Is it that when the school's debt gets to a certain point, all kids' meals are replaced by "alternative meals"? Or do some kids' meals only get switched? If so what is the deciding criterion?
  • infecto 2y ago
    I can remember at least in High School that usually happens. None of it is healthy or good but you are allowed choice.
  • stephencanon 2y ago
    Varies enormously between states and school districts. In our public elementary school, there are two or three options each day: a hot meal of some sort, some days a hot vegetarian meal, and a salad bar that kids can choose what they want from (which usually includes some options that you wouldn't call "salad"). It's not fine dining, but the quality and variety is generally pretty decent. The kids have accounts, and parents are expected to refill a negative balance, but every kid gets the lunch of their choice regardless.
  • mbfg 2y ago
    Only kids who can't afford the "regular" meals get switched to alternative meals.
    • trelane 2y ago
      Only in some places. In others (like ours) they can keep buying lunch when they've a debt. The kid just can't buy side items (junk food like cookies, ice cream, chips, soda) This is not a universal.
  • neolefty 2y ago
    > When the school's debt ... It's not the school's debt, it's individual families. If they fall behind on lunch fees, their children have to eat cold meals. > Do different kids get different meals in US schools? I mean for non-medical or dietary purposes? Depends. US schools are run by the states, so it varies from place to place. As other commenters have said, some states just fund lunch so debt isn't an issue. I'm sure some accommodate dietary requirements & preferences more than others. My experience was that if you have specific requirements that the school can't meet, you just bring your own lunch. If you're lucky enough to have organized parents.
• airstrike 2y ago
  This is the most poignant article I remember reading in recent years. Wow. Thank you for sharing.
• infecto 2y ago
  Nit: could not stand the writing style. It took 3-4x more words than it should have. On the topic I agree and believe strongly that all kids should receive free food at school. It amazes me people will fight to prevent when to me the costs are small but the benefit can be huge for the next generation.
  • alwa 2y ago
    It frustrates me when advocates get righteous about something that they only imagine and don’t take the time to see for themselves (while claiming it’s widespread and easy to observe): “I never actually witnessed this scene myself, but I’ve interviewed enough lunch ladies, principals and kids to construct a sort of composite mental image that now plays on an endless loop between my ears. It’s become my own personal film of educational injustice, frame by frame, in high-definition slow motion: the momentary confusion on the child’s face, the hushed explanation from the cashier, the sudden understanding dawning in the kid’s eyes, the burning shame that follows.” And from that, cooking up an opening paragraph precipitated on “witnessing” it, and Nuremberg-like somber intonations about the banality of “the ritual humiliation of second graders. It’s watching the adults in the room — ordinary, decent people who’d never dream of snatching food from a child in any other context — perform this strange ceremony with the mechanical resignation of DMV employees, while around them life continues uninterrupted, because this is just How Things Are.” == He didn’t witness this. He talked to people who were heartsick about it happening at all. Even in his imagined example, the kid doesn’t go hungry, the kid gets a sandwich instead of an institutional pizza slice. The adults I remember from situations like this would absolutely go out of their way to treat kids with dignity—I remember foodservice workers seeking out any kids who still looked hungry to slip them leftover hot food from the line, and in some cases workers or counselors or teachers covering kids’ meals themselves. Dunning lunch debt is probably a silly way to run a program, but there’s no honest policy assessment here. I don’t see why school lunch shouldn’t be free at the point of service, but I also don’t know why it isn’t under the status quo. I bet it’s not raw sadism. The pearl-clutching seems to focus on behaviors that are unsubstantiated at best.
    • bombcar 2y ago
      It's good to remember that AI isn't the only thing that hallucinates scenarios.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• dataflow 2y ago
  I'm confused about the mechanics of the process here. Could someone explain how paying off the lunch debt translates to hot meals? I'm confused because the fact that a continuous debt -- however the amount -- means your expenses exceed your revenue. So even if you pay it off... doesn't that mean when doors open tomorrow, there'll be new debt, and thus the problem will still recur? Or is the idea that the debt was decreasing? Edit: Fixed some misunderstanding in my comment.
  • neolefty 2y ago
    It's not the school that's in debt, it's individual families who owe money to the lunch program. But yeah, the problem you point out — families can go into debt again — is real, I think.
    • dataflow 2y ago
      Thanks for explaining. I somehow had my wires crossed and couldn't figure out what was going on. Updated the comment to address that.
  • maxlybbert 2y ago
    The federal government provides money to schools so that schools can provide low-cost food in their the cafeterias. The food provided has to meet nutritional standards ( https://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp https://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp ). The federal government also sends some actual food to the schools ( https://www.fns.usda.gov/usda-fis https://www.fns.usda.gov/usda-fis ). Honestly, even with the subsidy and supplies, it’s hard to imagine how the schools provide much food. Students from low income families can qualify for completely free lunch, and others can qualify for drastically reduced prices for lunch. I don’t know if there are any federal requirements about how to handle students who forget or lose their lunch money, or students who normally bring their lunches to school but somehow forget or lose them. Most schools will have a specific policy, such as providing the food to the student and requesting the money later. The “debt” in question is between the school and the student, not between the school and its suppliers. There is a relatively new policy (maybe ten years old) that schools with a large number of low income students can provide free breakfast and lunch to all students ( https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/cep https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/cep ), so school lunch debt would be an issue in areas doing just a little better than that.
• stefantalpalaru 2y ago
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• labrador 2y ago
  My mother suffered severe post-partum depression when I was 7 so I got my 5 year old brother and I off to school most mornings in the 60's. Thankfully I grew up in California so we were never food shamed unlike some states that still think lunch debt is a moral failure.
• andreicap 2y ago
  My poor country (Moldova) just implemented free lunches for kids in primary and middle schools. What is the reason US doesn’t have this already at federal level?
  • rdtsc 2y ago
    Very little at primary school level is controlled federally. It’s mostly state and school district based. That has both good and bad ramifications but it’s just how it is.
  • klodolph 2y ago
    If Moldova were a US state, it would be the 35th largest state, by population. Most of these programs are done state-by-state in the US. Because the US is so large, it takes a large amount of political willpower to push programs out at the federal level. Education is mostly handled on a state-by-state basis. The funding split is around 90%/10%, with 90% handled by the state and 10% federal. (That may be changing.) As a rule of thumb, it makes more sense to compare countries in Europe against individual states in the US, rather than comparing countries to countries.
  • boxed 2y ago
    Same reason they have expensive university, extremely expensive healthcare, for profit prisons, etc, I guess. There's a dog-eat-dog mentality over there which is quite puzzling to us Europeans.
    • compootr 2y ago
      > mentality individualism; I think people in our crazy state of states tend to be only interested in what they want, and no other interests
      • okanat 2y ago
        Europe has quite a bit individualism too. Maybe even more when people can freely express themselves without judgment, you know. But to have individualism for everybody, everybody needs to eat and have a dignified life. Cutting less lucky people's food and healthcare for penny pinching, or worse religiously followed ideology isn't individualism. It is sadist selfishness. It kills individuality of large swaths of people for a tiny minority's extravagant and boringly repetitive habits.
• cpursley 2y ago
  That's very kind. Now if we can start getting some real food into American school instead of SNAP Slop. If France and South Korea can manage it, we can as well.
• senectus1 2y ago
  (I'm in Australia) I dont understand why this concept of schools providing lunches ever became a thing... Why did this idea ever take off?
  • neolefty 2y ago
    Do you mean you always have to bring your lunch to school with you, in Australia? I went to a weird high school in the US where that was the case. They just didn't have a lunch room, so everybody sat in the hallways at lunch time. But yeah, all the other schools I've heard of provide lunch. Most offer breakfast as well, as an option.
    • senectus1 2y ago
      correct. most schools have canteens you can buy lunch from... but the "norm" is for every kid to bring recess and lunch foods every day. Keeping the bloody crows from getting into your bag and eating it is an added challenge that most rise to fairly easily. note its also expected that you've already had breakfast before you arrive at school.
  • icegreentea2 2y ago
    School lunch programs across the world get setup and perpetuated for a variety of reasons. They also have a variety of funding models. For the US specifically, major federal programs began during the Great Depression as a two for one combo. It solved the direct problem of... people being poor and their kids not having food/lunch, and it also provided a reasonable supply sink for the government to buy out supply from farmers to help keep things going. Anyhow, since then for a variety of reasons, subsidized/free lunches have stuck around. Primarily because the underlying problem (food insecurity) has not been adequately solved. School lunches also tends to be amongst the more politically palatable/defensible forms of welfare in the United States, since its very structure and beneficiaries make it harder to criticize. So while expansion of SNAP or other programs that might help tackle general food insecurity might run into headwinds, most of those arguments tend to falter when it comes to feeding children directly at school. For example, it's hard to argue that getting free lunches at school would encourage "abuse and malaise" amongst students. Similarly, since the composition of lunches tend to be under control of the supplying organization, there's reduced concern of people spending their assistance on "luxuries".
• phkahler 2y ago
  >> But what if the truth is that we need all of these approaches simultaneously? What if paying off a specific child’s lunch debt today doesn’t preclude advocating for a complete structural overhaul tomorrow? What if the emotional resonance of specific, concrete actions is precisely what builds the coalition necessary for systemic change? That might happen, but I hate to say that another possibility is people come to expect that someone will just pay the debt. Where unpaid bills may look like some kind of problem, a lack of unpaid bills looks like things are fine and no change is needed. Short term solutions are best implemented along with long term ones. But to the authors point, you gotta start somewhere or nothing will happen.
  • em-bee 2y ago
    when i considered whether patching up the problem might be counterproductive i realized that the people who benefit from those payments and who might come to expect that the debt will be paid are not the people who would go out to fight for a solution anyways. the caterers are not going to lobby for a change, they'll just continue to refuse to feed children who haven't paid or they'll haunt the parents for payment because in their eyes it's the parents who are at fault. and those parents don't have any power or resources to change something either. they are busy making ends meet. but patching up the problem involves new people. people who do have more resources and are thus actually capable of lobbying for change. and that's exactly what seems to happen. also, a simple law change just to enforce that all children get the same food, whether it's paid or not, even without any funding moves the incentive for the caterers to lobby for more funding. so even that would be a win.
  • Smeevy 2y ago
    >[...] that another possibility is people come to expect that someone will just pay the debt. The last few months are making me respond to that question with "so what?" I would rather that earnest efforts to reduce human misery accidentally benefit someone undeserving rather than to allow those problems to continually get worse. Heck, I'm even ready for brand new unforeseen problems arising from those efforts. After decades of being lectured about the myriad slippery slopes that come with "too much" charity I'm ready try taking a slide down one or two for a change. We've been trying nothing for a long time and it doesn't seem to have much effect. Please note that I'm absolutely not disagreeing with you and I apologize in advance if my tone comes across as strident.
• giancarlostoro 2y ago
  > $835. > ... > It was less than some monthly car payments. I'm not sure what kind of car, but that's way above any car payment I've ever had to pay. ;)
  • criddell 2y ago
    According to this site [1], the average car payment is $724. [1]: https://www.lendingtree.com/auto/debt-statistics/#:~:text=The%20average%20car%20payment%20for%20a%20new%20vehicle%20is%20%24742,year%2Dover%2Dyear%20decrease. https://www.lendingtree.com/auto/debt-statistics/#:~:text=Th...
    • giancarlostoro 2y ago
      Interesting, I think so far I've only had used cars, but even so my wife has a newer car than I do, bought it brand new, and she's paying below that threshold so it surprised me to hear that amount.
  • m-hodges 2y ago
    I just popped over to Honda's website and clicked through on a new CR-V. I went with the EX trim which is the 2nd cheapest of six available trims. After clicking next on every screen without adding any upgrades, it offered me $33,745 MSRP with 36-month financing at 2.49% APR, which came to $1,035/month.
    • giancarlostoro 2y ago
      For 3 years? Yeah that makes sense, but if you do 40k (think SUV / upgraded mid-sized car) at 70 months, at 5% its in the 750 range a month, which is still not quite that high. I can't imagine most people do 3 year car loans.
      • FireBeyond 2y ago
        Yeah, I have to imagine that the convergence of: - people buying new - but looking for the cheapest trims - on an aggressively short loan is particularly large. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of the 108 month or more loans starting to show up, but still.
• klntsky 2y ago
  It always felt strange to me that although the US is clearly a guilt-driven culture, it has shame-based mechanics of control when it comes to finances. May it be due to protestant christianity losing its former position of influence? So that more archaic forms of human behavior control take precedence?
  • fred69 2y ago
    Shame is the Protestant enforcement mechanism for guilt.
  • nobody9999 2y ago
    >May it be due to protestant christianity losing its former position of influence? Nope. At least not AFAICT. In fact, it seems to have a lot to do with the Prosperity Gospel[0] which, IIUC is a Protestant thing. The primary tenets of that are (others please do correct me if I mis-state this) that if you are a devout servant of Christ, you will be rewarded with riches on this Earthly pale. If however, you are not sufficiently devout, you will not be rewarded. As such, if you're rich, you're a decent, devout Christian. If you're not, you are insufficiently devout or just downright evil and, as such, you deserve your poverty. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
  • jccalhoun 2y ago
    It is capitalism. If you fail it is your fault. Don't question the system. You just need to work harder like those rich people who were born slightly less rich.
• ItsBob 2y ago
  In The Peoples Republic of Scotland, all primary kids get free lunches now, I think (Primary is aged 4/5 to 11/12). When it was introduced, my son was in P1 or 2. We spoke to the head and asked if we could pay for our son's lunch as we didn't need the freebie. She said there was no way to pay for it: it was free whether you wanted it or not. Crazy. I'm a rampant capitalist, every man for himself and all that but there is something about denying kids the fundamentals, like shelter, food etc. that rubs me up the wrong way. There should never be a situation where they are denied proper lunches. Never. School lunch debt is an adult-designed problem that we shouldn't be passing onto kids.
  • bombcar 2y ago
    What I've seen which works decently well is an official policy of charging, and a policy of free for those in need, and then just cancelling or writing off the "debt" for those that didn't/couldn't pay. One state's form of children's medicaid or whatever it is bills a "please pay this amount" each month, but the bill has a note that says "not paying this won't affect your coverage" and the coverage is granted not on whether you paid, but your financial situation. So the end result is the "bill" is actually an optional payment. At least in the USA, if you ever think you were wrongly given a tax or other financial advantage, you can donate the largess back to the government: https://www.pay.gov/public/form/start/23779454 https://www.pay.gov/public/form/start/23779454 (yay they take Venmo) I couldn't find something directly for Scotland, and I know that assuming the UK is the same thing has caused spicy reactions before, but this does exist: https://www.dmo.gov.uk/responsibilities/public-sector-funds-crnd/miscellaneous-accounts/donations-and-bequests-account/ https://www.dmo.gov.uk/responsibilities/public-sector-funds-...
• mproud 2y ago
  I love living in Minnesota. Walz passed the Free Meals for School Kids Program[^1] at my elementary school, no less! about two years ago. I’m happy that other states are finally realizing, gee, this is such a straightforward issue we could actually solve. [^1] https://education.mn.gov/MDE/dse/FNS/SNP/free/ https://education.mn.gov/MDE/dse/FNS/SNP/free/
  • rufus_foreman 2y ago
    >> gee, this is such a straightforward issue we could actually solve Shifting the cost from the parents who had the kids onto the taxpayers is not solving the problem. It's making people who didn't cause the problem subsidize the people who did cause the problem. That's not solving the problem. It's making sure there will be more problems.
    • gecko6 2y ago
      I don't have kids, and will never have kids, but even so I don't see people whose children are being denied food as a problem that the children's parent's caused. I see hungry kids who can't learn because they're distracted by hunger as the problem, and I will gladly pay taxes to see that they don't go hungry.
    • bnj 2y ago
      It’s hard to tell from your comment whether you mean the lunch debt is the problem, or the kids are the problem.
    • AngryData 2y ago
      Without kids living and being born and learning and becoming productive members of society your lifestyle would not exist and current economic models would collapse in a handful of years. You are shooting everyone including yourself in the foot because you personally don't need to walk places.
      • giantg2 2y ago
        "and current economic models would collapse in a handful of years." It's possible that's not a bad thing considering they're built on excessive consumption and an ever expanding population.
• searine 2y ago
  Childhood nutrition and Lead exposure are the two highest impact issues that can be easily solved to improve life-time outcomes, and yet we don't fix it. It is mind boggling that we leave kids starving in america, and we are going to pay for it for decades.
• wonderwonder 2y ago
  Pretty depressing. I'm pretty right wing but kids should always be taken care of. I'll happily pay more in property tax to cover school lunches and kids medical.
  • em-bee 2y ago
    property taxes go to schools in your own area. would you also support that taxes be redistributed to other areas that don't have enough tax income and where people can't afford higher taxes? because as i see it, that is the real problem in the way schools in the US are funded. (i am hoping/assuming your answer is yes, but i think the distinction is important and needs to be pointed out)
    • wonderwonder 2y ago
      Honestly my answer is no. I want my property taxes to ensure that my kids get the best possible start. My money supports my kids and those kids that live in my area. I would say yes to paying more property tax to support my local schools to an even greater degree. I am in no way ok with my kids school funding getting reduced to fund other areas. I specifically moved to this area for the good schools. I would be ok with an additional penny of sales tax to fund a statewide program to ensure all kids have access to food.
      • trelane 2y ago
        You can always give your government (including schools) extra money if you think they need it more than you do, or if you think they can use it better than than you can. Taxes just force everyone else to give the government money.
• rpcope1 2y ago
  Surely it can't be that expensive to just provide every child living in our country that so desires/needs it three decent meals a day, regardless of their situation? That one has always confused me, if our country is actually prosperous and powerful, that something as simple as that seems like a given that would be embarrassing not to provide.
  • bombcar 2y ago
    Let's assume (bad assumption, but it should be good enough for the math) that a Happy Meal™®© is a decent meal. It costs about $6 around here, so let's say without toy it's $5. https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables/pop1.asp https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables/pop1.asp says there are 71 million kids. $466 billion a year. Ok, ok, that is maybe too high. Let's assume a wonderful world where you can produce a meal for a dollar (less than the local school district). $77 billion a year.
    • frakt0x90 2y ago
      The price you pay at the kiosk is not the cost of production.
      • bombcar 2y ago
        Which is why I calculated an upper and lower bound. It's hard to argue it would be MORE expensive than McDonalds-for-all and hard to argue it would be much cheaper than a buck-o-meal.
    • ryoshoe 2y ago
      Based those calculations every child could be fed for less than 10% of the DoD's annual budget of $849.8 billion. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3703410/department-of-defense-releases-the-presidents-fiscal-year-2025-defense-budget https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/370341...
      • bombcar 2y ago
• neilv 2y ago
  Where I went to grade school, I don't recall a peanut butter sandwich option. If you didn't bring a bagged lunch, and you wanted to eat lunch, you had to spend your recess time washing trays. Which I did sometimes. Sometimes, adults want children to go through the same "character building" rituals that they did. For example, working some kind of job, to supposedly teach values about hard work and responsibility. Other times, adults don't want to subject kids to "character building" that they went through. For example, enduring bullying. Or working a crappy job, while their schoolmates played sports, socialized, did extracurriculars, or got a decent night's sleep. On this one, my opinion is: Just feed the children already. Stop stomping them harder with class inequality, and conditioning them to accept that as normal, from a young age. I'd rather have children be raised to reject class inequality -- as unfair, greedy, cruel, and dumb. And more immediately, I want children to be fed, and to get other basic care.
• hshdhdhj4444 2y ago
  > It’s larger in that the entire structure of how we feed children at school is a tangle of federal programs, income thresholds, paperwork requirements, and local policies If DOGE was anything other than an attempt to entrench executive control and execute performative cruelty, this is the stuff it would be tackling. There are so many arbitrary conflicting policies that each only make things slightly less inefficient to the point where it doesn’t make sense to spend the energy fixing them, but put together they really add up to tangible and significant experiences in people’s lives. An “all of the above” concentrated effort that looks at everything together, and then makes a list of suggestions to consolidate and harmonize policies that Congress can then pick through for the ones they agree upon on both sides of the aisle and pass quickly and unanimously would make a massive difference. Sure, it may take a year instead of a few months to achieve this, but the changes would be beneficial, non destructive, and lasting, none of which can be said of even a generous perspective of what was actually done.
• mixmastamyk 2y ago
  One thing I don’t like about the free lunch but never mentioned is that it is by necessity very cheap food, and that means carbage. Try getting a kid to eat vegetables when processed bread products are being handed out at school. Healthy eating pretty much stopped that year. Which is a shame because it’s not expensive.
• giancarlostoro 2y ago
  I love stories like this one. It reminds me of my college years when I partook in a non-profit that was started by my aunt / uncle where we fed the homeless. I learned then that anyone can just step in and do something right in society, you don't have to waste hours, days, months, and years waiting for daddy government to do it.
  • dredmorbius 2y ago
    Yes and no. The scale at which governments can organise, and (despite much protestation to the opposite) the efficiency with which it can do so, really is unmatched. Even the word's wealthiest individuals and families (save a few which function as states, e.g., the House of Saud, or some royal families) pale next to the level at which large advanced national governments can operate. The Gates Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic organisations in the world, is "rattled" by the present US administrations threat to its mission: <https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/gates-foundation-is-rattled-by-trumps-threat-to-its-mission/ https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/gates-foundation-i...> The NGO / non-profit space does do a great deal of good work, and as it's decentralised it's difficult to disable all of it all at once. Though curtailments of major benefactors, ironically national governments in the present moment, or should I more accurately specify one specific government, can wreak havok at international scale. But NGOs are inefficient, often work at cross-purposes, suffer from corruption, and often have staggering administrative and overhead ratios, with only a minority of raised funds reaching active operations. The Tiny Spark podcast has been discontinued but has an excellent back-catalogue detailing many of the problems with philanthropic charities and welfare projects: <https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tiny-spark/id505053432 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tiny-spark/id505053432> So, yes, you can strike out on your own, and I'd really hate to discourage anyone from doing so. But you can do far more if you link up with others. And governance is really the technical art of linking up with others.
    • giancarlostoro 2y ago
      When you target local issues, and don't wait for the behemoth to get to it, I think you'll agree, that you can be drastically more effective. Now if we could get people to do this at scale as discrete orgs, maybe that would prevent some of the churn and issues we see when orgs get too big.
• freehorse 2y ago
  I feel like this has already been discussed before one million times more than the simplicity of the issue should require. Any income etc based coupon system is inefficient and automatically excludes a big portion of children that such measures are supposed to be for, eg because a lot of them come from families that are too dysfunctional to apply for those, ignorant of them due to language and other barriers, or because of (perceived or not) social stigma. And while adults are considered responsible for their own lives, it is a total moral bankruptcy for a society to have their children starve for their parents dysfunction. At the same time, providing free lunch to children at school solves/eases a lot of social, health and other issues all at once, for a cost that is basically peanuts compared to how impactful it can be.
  • giantg2 2y ago
    "it is a total moral bankruptcy for a society to have their children starve for their parents dysfunction." Sounds like child services should take those children then? If they can't apply for the lunches, then surely they aren't getting food at home, nor the proper medical care.
    • anttihaapala 2y ago
      Yes, and while waiting for the child services to intervene then those children would still be starving.
      • giantg2 2y ago
        I think you underestimate how quickly they can get involved (not always a good thing).
    • vineyardmike 2y ago
      > Sounds like child services should take those children then? This is a HUGE, dangerous leap. > If they can't apply for the lunches, then surely they aren't getting food at home, nor the proper medical care. Plenty of parents (and plenty of people generally) just aren't aware of social services but are quite aware that they're supposed to feed and care for their children. Plenty more forget to fill out paperwork and return phone calls. Many states' governments actively make applying for welfare and support difficult or inconvenient - plenty of parents can't take the time to return paperwork in person, make phone calls during the workday, etc. Needing support - either welfare or just kindness and assistance - is not a moral failure and not a sign of a bad parent. Beyond that, CPS wouldn't necessarily provide a great life for the child. There is a lot of difference between an imperfect parent and a danger to a child. Oh, and of course, CPS is a lot more expensive to run than a few meals. Giving out free meals at school is a lot easier if we want kids to be fed. As an anecdote, I was laid off from my job once, and someone asked me if I applied for unemployment within my state. I didn't know it existed, nor that I was eligible until months later when a barista told me during small talk. The whole time I managed to remember to feed myself (and my family). I sure hope no internet commenter would look at that and decide to take my children away!
• fluorinerocket 2y ago
  It always was crazy that kids have to go to school by law but the meals aren't free. Seems to defy common sense
• mistyvales 2y ago
  Depressing
• brundolf 2y ago
  Many people, especially in our subculture, tend to feel like if they can't solve an entire problem forever, if they can't Change The World, what they're doing is futile and pointless But most people can't change the world. Most individuals shouldn't have the power to change the world. What we can do is be a force for good in the lives that are proximal to us. If we can make a few people's lives better, we should rest easy knowing that we've done our part. If we can do more than that, then great. But never let the overwhelming hugeness of the entire world cripple your ability to make your little dent. Most people only get the chance to make a little dent - if that - and there's nothing wrong with that.
  • toomuchtodo 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_Thrower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_Thrower
  • ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
    One of my favorite quotes: > "I was in the Air Force a while, and they had what they call 'policing the area,' and I think that’s a pretty good thing to go by. If everyone just takes care of their own area, then we won’t have any problems. Be here. Be present. Wherever you are, be there. And look around you, and see what needs to be changed." -Willie Nelson
    • elcritch 2y ago
      Reminds me of another one: > To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order; we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right. Confucius, The Great Learning
    • socalgal2 2y ago
      Isn't this also the tragedy of the commons problem though? It only takes a few bad actors to not take care of their own area and over time, those that are doing extra to make up for them eventually feel like they're being taken advantage of. I feel like in Japan it works because the culture adds enough social pressure that those not doing their part fall in line - or something. I don't think most western culture has that social pressure any more nor do I expect it can by added back
• irrational 2y ago
  I’m thankful I live in a state that uses my tax money to make all school breakfast and lunches free. I wonder what percentage of state taxes is actually required to pay for all school breakfast and lunches? Making sure kids aren’t inhibited from learning because of empty stomachs seems like a no brainer.
  • bonestamp2 2y ago
    The other important part of this policy is that it normalizes kids not paying for lunch. This is important because they realized many kids who couldn't afford lunch were still skipping their free lunch because they were embarrassed to get a free lunch. When everyone gets a free lunch then nobody is embarrassed.
    • timewizard 2y ago
      I've heard of some schools going out of their way to make it obvious which kids were receiving free lunch and which weren't; however, that wasn't universal to all programs. Our school just had "lunch tickets." There was a register on a different floor from the lunch room where you could go buy them, pick them up if your parents bought them by check, or pick them up if you were on the assistance list. Once you had them they were all the same. Only the person at the register would know your status. None of my friends who got that ever were embarrassed in any way about using them as they were the only ones to know.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    • riffraff 2y ago
      It seems it should be trivial to solve the differentiation problem too. When I was a kid in Italy in the '90s we paid for lunch in middle school, but this was done through "lunch tickets". You'd get those from the town hall, some of us paid for them, some got them for free, but you would not know about it when getting lunch. (Still, free lunch for all kids should obviously be the default)
• mylesp 2y ago
  As an Australian, I find it crazy that getting food from a cafeteria at school is the norm in the US. In Australia you bring food from home 90% of the time. On special occasions or every now and then you order lunch from the canteen. It seems almost against American individualism to have a communal meal where everyone is served up the same food and sit indoors in a dining hall. Maybe it is just strange to me but I can't be the only person to think this.
  • gedy 2y ago
    It seems to have changed in past decades. When I was in school in 70s/80s, everyone brought their lunch. And we weren't in a well-off area or anything.
    • Brybry 2y ago
      As a sibling comment noted, the National School Lunch Program started in 1946. [1] The School Breakfast Program started in the 1960s/70s. [2] More recently, in 2010, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was passed which enabled the Community Eligibility Provision which lets low income area schools offer free food to all kids without individual application/qualification. [3][4] Various schools I went to in the 90s/00s had some kids bringing their lunch, some kids paying the school for lunch, and some getting free lunch (because they were poor enough to qualify). [1] https://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp https://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp [2] https://www.fns.usda.gov/sbp/factsheet https://www.fns.usda.gov/sbp/factsheet [3] https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2014/05/20/fact-sheet-healthy-hunger-free-kids-act-school-meals-implementation https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2014/05/... [4] https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/cep https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/cep
  • crooked-v 2y ago
    School-provided lunches in the US started in the first place in the 1930s and 40s because the sheer number of malnourished teenagers was making military planners nervous. The US is much wealthier now, but there's still about 20 million children who get free lunch for financial reasons.
  • _AzMoo 2y ago
• chasd00 2y ago
  DISD ( Dallas Independent School District ) has had free lunch for as long as i can remember. Free breakfast too. On school holidays you can still goto school and get a meal. I want to say they do this on weekends too. Granted, MREs from an Army surplus store are better than school lunch but it is free. I don't think my kids have ever eaten a school lunch. During COVID my wife and I got a EBT (food stamps) card in the mail from the school district with like $2,000 on it for food. It was basically the dollars spent on school lunch for the time the kids were not in school.
  • kerkeslager 2y ago
    Wow that's amazing. I'm glad to hear they're doing it at least somewhat right somewhere.
  • throwaway2037 2y ago
    > I don't think my kids have ever eaten a school lunch. I am confused why it was important to include this sentence in your post. Overall: Excellent. This sentence: Not required. Is this a flex?
    • imp0cat 2y ago
      It's just a way to indirectly say that the school food was not awesome.
    • chasd00 2y ago
      funny thing, i actually thought about that sentence a lot. I added it in after writing the rest of the post because i felt bad implying I subject my kids to school food. I wasn't intending that as a "flex" but just that the food is really bad. On the other hand, i understand not all families have that option so maybe it is a flex in an unintended way.
      • Lanzaa 2y ago
        You may not have intended it as a "flex", but you are teaching your children to be snooty. If they have "never" eaten a school lunch, they have judged the lunches based on appearance rather than substance/flavor. I wonder how you have judged the school lunches to be lesser than MREs, perhaps you tried the lunches before your children.
• deadbabe 2y ago
  If I knew there was a debt like this for less than $1000 at a school nearby I’d probably pay it off. But the information just doesn’t seem to be out there.
• iandanforth 2y ago
  On the off chance you're interested in school lunches I highly recommend watching videos of Japanese school lunches on YouTube. There's a bunch out there now and if you were raised in the American system it will probably blow your mind. The idea that lunches can be freshly made, on site, out of healthy ingredients and children are active participants in serving and cleaning up is just crazy. When I encountered it for the first time I felt like a big part of my childhood had been sold to the lowest bidder.
  • staplers 2y ago
    I felt like a big part of my childhood had been sold to the lowest bidder. It was. Most local procurement laws enforce this.
    • delfinom 2y ago
      It wasn't just sold to the lowest bidder, the subsidized lunch program is specifically not to subsidize the kids, but to bail out farmers growing crap nobody wants.
      • reverendsteveii 2y ago
        when your tax money helps hungry children that's socialism and that's evil. when it helps agricultural conglomerates, otoh...
    • gregw134 2y ago
      In our case, sold to the bidder who gave kickbacks to the district supervisor.
      • Suppafly 2y ago
        we had pepsi machines in my middle school because the pepsi distributor in town "donated" a new score board.
    • panick21_ 2y ago
• aetherspawn 2y ago
  I might be misunderstanding the problem but in Australia the parents send the kids to school with packed lunches proportional to the household income… fancy lunches for rich kids, and rice or bread for poor kids.
  • tc43 2y ago
    Or proportional to the household eating habits. I'm definitely in the upper income bracket of my son's state primary school and he brings a sandwich and a piece of fruit like every other kid because it's a sensible amount of food for a small child.
    • em-bee 2y ago
      when does your son come home and when (and what) is his next meal? a sandwich is enough for a mid morning snack, but not for a midday meal unless the kids get another meal right when they come home. traditional wisdom has it that you should have a good breakfast and lunch, and a smaller meal for dinner. that's possible when the kids come home no later than 2pm but if they usually come home at 3-4pm or later then a sandwich is not enough to get them through the day.
      • asdf6969 2y ago
        A sandwich and a piece of fruit will probably be in the 400-800 calorie range. It’s absolutely enough food for 1/3 meals. Especially if the kid is also eating snacks
        • em-bee 1y ago
          depending on age a child needs about 1400-3000 calories per day. the bulk of which should be eaten in the early part of the day when you are most active. 400-800 is not enough for that. the official US guidelines for school provided lunch range from 550–850. that's a bit lower than i would choose based on daily needs especially for older kids. breakfast and lunch should be more than 1/3rd each. dinner should be less than 1/3rd. i am from austria. a sandwich here is considered a snack. not a meal.
• camdenreslink 2y ago
  New York State just passed universal free lunch and breakfast for public school students. Of all the things that we spend our tax dollars on, this feels like a no brainer. Making sure children are fed should be at the top of the list.
  • kerkeslager 2y ago
    Stuff like this seems like such a dividing line to me. Like, in theory when people believe things that are morally wrong, I want to reach out to them with compassion and respect and try to gently persuade them to my side because we're all, in theory, on the same side. But if you don't want kids to be fed, I really am not sure we're actually on the same side any more and I really am not sure what to do with that.
    • yieldcrv 2y ago
      People generally don't want the Federal government involved, thats where the consensus has been lacking. this is exhibit A of showing that these country sized states are fully capable of handling their own affairs and universal access to things, the same as the 21st century developed nations that do the same thing You and the other parties actually agree that it isn't controversial, there are many funding sources if its deemed important, keep the federal government out of it
      • forgetfreeman 2y ago
        Except none of that is actually true. Unconvinced? Go look at a heat map of poverty in the US and then check out which states get bulk of federal assistance dollars. Note none of those states is running a massive budget surplus. While I have you I'd like to also point out that "hrrr federal government bad" is not only tautological, as an ideology it's deeply stupid . States frequently encounter problems that require a bigger budget than they can muster to solve (see also: disaster recovery).
        • yieldcrv 2y ago
• TheSophiaG20 2y ago
  [flagged]
• yongjik 2y ago
  South Korea started dabbling in free school lunches around 2001 - when a few schools started it. It gained momentum, and then it became a huge debate in 2011, when Seoul's mayor somehow decided he hated free lunches so much that he arranged a referendum, and said he would quit if people didn't agree with him on the matter. He did quit. Fast forward to 2025, and now free school lunches are nearly ubiquitous. Once people experience it, few want to go back. Because it's a much more efficient and hassle-free system. Yes, of course the money is coming from tax: in other words, if you're a middle-class parent, nothing changed. You're still paying for your kids' lunch one way or the other. But you don't have to pay for a gratuitous system of bureaucracy that keeps track of which kids' parents are making how much money, and whether each kid is "eligible" to eat lunch today, so your money is actually being used more efficiently with less overhead.
  • roughly 2y ago
    > Seoul's mayor somehow decided he hated free lunches so much that he arranged a referendum, and said he would quit if people didn't agree with him on the matter. He did quit. It’s nice when things work out.
    • yongjik 2y ago
      The final twist is... the mayor somehow came back from political suicide, and he's Seoul's mayor again (since 2021). At least he stopped complaining about school lunch. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • Suppafly 2y ago
    >But you don't have to pay for a gratuitous system of bureaucracy This is what's frustrating about America. There is so much bureaucracy that exists only to pay for itself, and I suppose, provide a few jobs, but you're an unreasonable socialist if you point out that it'd be cheaper just to not keep track of who needs to pay and give food to everyone for free instead.
    • dragonwriter 2y ago
      > This is what's frustrating about America. There is so much bureaucracy that exists only to pay for itself, and I suppose, provide a few jobs, No, it exists to prevent people from receiving public services, both by its direct operation and indirectly by making the service more painful to use so people who would be entitled to use it nevertheless avoid it.
• roughly 2y ago
  > “That’s stupid,” she said with 7-year-old clarity. “Why don’t they just let them eat?” We’ll spend the rest of that child’s life convincing them that the answer to that is complicated.
  • lmz 2y ago
    I think she'll learn the answer after she gets a job and needs to pay for food.
    • Spivak 2y ago
      Yes, as an adult she will learn that it's extra stupid because as a child she had no means or autonomy to work for and pay for her own food. I mean I've heard tell that children yearn for the mines but when it's the responsibility of adults to provide for the material needs of children any adult who actively participates in a system which seeks to deny a child those needs is at the top of my shitlist. There is no universe where I wouldn't just give food to a child who is hungry in my proximity.
      • casey2 2y ago
        The government abuses children in that they prevent them from working under the irreligious notion that working is exploitative, creating ten problems from one. Thus they are forced to sit in daycare for years as their spirit is forever tainted by the great "mercy" of their parents and government.
        • roughly 1y ago
          The weird thing about the LLM era is it’s impossible to tell if an actual human decided to string these words together or if someone’s just playing around with an Ebenezer Scrooge persona.
• zoom6628 2y ago
  One word for this - heroic.
• crummy 2y ago
  A political party in New Zealand just considered rolling back school lunches to only those in need, rather than every kid at a lower decile school. This article is a great response to why that is a bad idea.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• etchalon 2y ago
  Orphan-Crushing Machine
• ThomW 2y ago
  It absolutely floors me that children are forced by law to attend school and they don't automatically get a hot meal. That's irresponsible.
  • analog31 2y ago
    A weird aspect of my childhood: I brought a sandwich to lunch every day when I was in school. At first, my mom made it, but very quickly it became my own job, not that it was particularly difficult. The school had subsidized lunches and milk. I always brought a nickel for milk. The teacher collected everybody's lunch money at the start of the day. That way, it was utterly opaque who was getting it for free. A simple system, appropriate for the times. But I remember that my lunch was always better than the grim school lunch, and I always wondered: Why can't they ditch the hot lunch, and just give everybody a nice sandwich, and a piece of fruit, which is better? I'm sure there are good arguments for the hot lunch, but still it's counterintuitive to me. And 55 years later, I still bring a sandwich, or leftovers, for lunch, and skip the hot meal at the company cafeteria.
    • ViscountPenguin 2y ago
      Here in Australia packed lunches are the standard, but something like a Japanese or Russian school lunch seems obviously superior in my mind. At the very least I wish my school had let kids use the microwave, cold leftovers get a bit disappointing over time.
• MagicMoonlight 2y ago
  Paying off the debt doesn’t solve anything. They’ll get to buy one meal, go back into debt because their parent doesn’t top up the account, and get banned again.
  • trelane 2y ago
    exactly my thought. (But also, the kid isn't banned, they are just restricted to the cold lunch for some reason. This is not universal. And most (all?) places let you bring your lunch) Seems like the author is almost at a solution: partner with schools to pay for the kids' lunches on an ongoing basis.
• guywithahat 2y ago
  This whole fight feels nonsensical. This isn't a money issue, it's just a convenience issue. It was the same way with my parents when I was in school; they made plenty of money, but it was a pain trying to fill a lunch card or give my cash to buy lunches. There are a million programs for kids who are legitimately too poor to pay for lunches, not to mention bringing a lunch which is significantly cheaper and probably better for the kid. This guy just paid for lazy parents
• Cockbrand 2y ago
  In case you aren’t allow to read the article b/c of your adblocker: https://archive.ph/LZiES https://archive.ph/LZiES
• gigatexal 2y ago
  Bravo to this guy. I’m donating. I hope he continues to help kids but then helps get the legislation changed such that school lunches are free. It’s an investment in the kids. With food in their bellies they can better focus on learning. Why the f should a child have to pay for their food at school the purpose is to learn not be faced with the realization their families are poor every single day.
• subarctic 2y ago
  This article doesn't seem to really explain how this whole debt thing works. What I'm guessing happens is some kids go to the cafeteria and get food, and then their parents are supposed to pay the bill later, and they can't afford it so they don't (and maybe their parents told them they can't afford and they're supposed to bring a lunch to school but they didn't listen, or their parents didn't tell them). So then the lunchlady has to act like a debt collector and go take their food away and replace it with something cheaper (not sure why they just don't decline them the hot lunch food in the first place). Does this sound right?
  • osiriskang 2y ago
    I can only speak for my own schools in the USA, but this is not quite right. As a student, you were expected to pay for lunch at lunchtime. If you were privileged enough to afford it, generally your parents would give you enough money to fill your lunch account for 1-2 weeks. If you did not have enough money in your account to cover the meal, which was a set price for staples with extras (i.e., extra side dishes, snacks, drinks aside from water/milk) adding to the price, you would be required to have no more than a ham sandwich and milk, or if the cashier was feeling nice allow you to accrue debt/take the lunch for free. From what I have heard, this is how it was generally when I was in school. The movie stereotype of the bully "coming for your lunch money" while fairly anachronistic in my school years was not a completely unheard of scenario.
  • Suppafly 2y ago
    >So then the lunchlady has to act like a debt collector and go take their food away and replace it with something cheaper (not sure why they just don't decline them the hot lunch food in the first place). I'm sure it works 1000 different ways in 1000 different schools, but generally you pick up the tray at the beginning of the line and pay at the end of the line, so kids that are broke get to the end of the line and can't pay and then have the tray taken away and are handed a brown bag with a sandwich in it instead. Since most of these systems are tied to a lunch card or their student id, they don't know that they don't have any money left to pay until they get to the register and are told they don't. Likely they are allowed to "overdraft" by a week or two worth before they get to that point, but I'm sure some schools probably cut them off immediately. The overdraft is what the author in the OP is paying off, so now those kids are back zero and get to overdraft another week or two until they are cut off again. Or theoretically their parents that couldn't pay the overdraft off might be in a position to at least pay going forward.
• ziofill 2y ago
  I don't know exactly why but I so much appreciated the 'average guy-ness' and humility of the author. Good job, man. I wish there were more good people like you, starting with me...
• danans 2y ago
  For anyone from places in the US or abroad who can't understand why a society would subject children to this sort of situation, here are some of the attitudes that give rise to it: "I shouldn't have to pay to feed other people's kids" "If you don't shame the kids, the parents will never take responsibility for them" "A lot of those [poor] kids are overweight anyways" I've heard all of these said in some form.
• mtnGoat 2y ago
  As someone who experienced this first hand growing up. I consider how someone feels about free school lunch, a basic test of their humanity. If you think kids should go hungry or be embarrassed at school because of their parents finances… we can’t be friends, nor acquaintances. IMHO, you are subhuman at that point and not worth my time. My dad believed that because he paid taxes he shouldn’t have to pay the school to feed me. I begged, borrowed, and stole spare change to pay. He’d chip in once in a while, but once you are so far in debt they won’t feed you anymore (at least they didn’t at the time). I remember going to the lost and found every day to check the pockets of the clothes in there. I learned how to pick the locks on the gym lockers and would steal money from other kids pockets. I sometimes left school so I could go steal lunch from a grocery store near by. I got caught once, but after the lady knew what was up, she conveniently was always looking away from me during mid day of I came in. From the bottom of my heart I hope she receives every possible blessing in this life. No child should have to do that. Ever! Happy to pay taxes to and live in a state that has solved this problem!
  • theoreticalmal 2y ago
    One should not view others as subhuman because of the ideas they hold.
  • oulipo 2y ago
    "My dad believed that because he paid taxes he shouldn’t have to pay the school to feed me." I understand this is not what is meant here... but in a sense he's right. In a normal society where everyone pay taxes and they are well spent, it should be indeed the Government that's in charge of feeding kids at school
    • mtnGoat 2y ago
      Absolutely, and more states are starting to realize this. Covering basic needs for the most vulnerable is a cornerstone of community and a sign of success.
    • baq 2y ago
      He’s right but if everyone around you tells you you’re wrong, you’re also in a very bad spot. If your kids are hurting because you stand on the moral high ground… you get your cigs stolen from, by your children no less. All for the psychological comfort of being right. You could say he was right, just early: this is also known as very wrong in e.g. financial markets.
• heresjohnny 2y ago
  As someone from Europe, I had heard before about bankrupting ambulance rides, slavery in prisons, and food deserts. I did not expect to add “lunch money humiliation ritual” to that list. I’ll think of this next time I complain about my 50% income tax.
  • taxedrollik 2y ago
    50% sounds manageable still. Currently paying ~65% of whatever I bill, in taxes and that hurts quite a lot. Assuming no costs to deliver, I need to bill 10K€ to net ~3,5K€. It makes exports uncompetitive with other lower taxed countries. Despite this, seeing a general practitioner can take months for issues that aren't-killing-you-right-now.
    • Suppafly 2y ago
      >Currently paying ~65% of whatever I bill, in taxes and that hurts quite a lot. A decent portion of that goes towards your retirement though right? It's not like it's just vague government services you don't benefit from.
    • Symbiote 2y ago
      To make a useful contribution to the discussion, at least say what country this applies to. You also seem to have added business taxes onto the income taxes.
    • kjkjadksj 2y ago
      Ahh but you can see a general practicioner! That puts you head an shoulders over the average urban californian saddled with being triaged into the stripmall based urgent care system for lack of regional hospitals and gps. Corporate healthcare solutions are no greener grass than your public option… wait until you find out what is considered a cosmetic procedure (like having teeth).
    • scotty79 2y ago
      It really doesn't matter how much tax you pay. If everyone pays 65% it's the same as if everyone paid 0. Income tax doesn't come from the pocket of a worker. Employer needs to pay you enough so that you can live your life the way you want to. If he doesn't, you just don't work for him and he has no business. They will pay you as little as they can, but the amount they optimize is the amount after tax. Economic though is focused around employers and employees but it's the customer that covers the bill down the line. As long as the consumer is healthy you can set tax as high or as low as you want to.
• kashunstva 2y ago
  Meanwhile, the proposed U.S. defence budget is ~ $1 trillion and the Department of Education is slated to not exist. This tells you much of what one needs to know about that country, and why having hungry children is perfectly ok. There should be a dialectic around individualism and communitarianism but with some number of citizens endorsing a polar position, including the solipsist-in-chief, it’s hard to see a way forward on social issues that require thinking on a moral, noneconomic plane.
  • 0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
    [flagged]
• yalok 2y ago
  Did not realize it happened just so recently in California: > In the 2022-23 school year, California became the first state to provide free school meals to any child regardless of whether they were eligible for the free or reduced-price meals as defined by the federal government.
• j-a-a-p 2y ago
  Am I missing something? My kids have to bring their own lunch to school. The school is for education and the parents' job is to feed them. And it gets even better: after 12/13 yo they grow self supporting capabilities, so as parent you only need to replenish the fridge.
  • lo0dot0 2y ago
    Right, it's that simple, no morals involved nothing to see here please move along . How naive can you be?
    • j-a-a-p 1y ago
      Enlighten me, what is moral about lunch? All kids bring it to school. Of course, my kids also would like an a la carte restaurant for lunch, but we as parents think it is more efficient and cheaper if we just provide a lunch bag from home.
      • lo0dot0 1y ago
        Feeding someone who is hungry or not feeding them when they cannot provide for themselves is a moral question. You can demand that parents provide for their kids but some don't.
        • j-a-a-p 1y ago
          > Feeding someone who is hungry or not feeding them when they cannot provide for themselves is a moral question. There are many examples of programs where people are structurally fed. None of these have positive results, and all of them are based on quasi moral arguments. Yes, we don't want people dying of hunger in refugee camps nor we want children falling behind in class because of their failing parents. But there is nothing moral about choosing the easy way out of the problem.
• bArray 2y ago
  I would expand on this - there are a surprising number of times where a relatively small amount of money would make a large difference to one or multiple people. Most people I know who have ended up in debt for example didn't not have the money to pay the debt entirely, they were just short for one month by a small amount. It's not long till it spirals completely out of control with interest, repayment penalties, etc, and that interest keeps adding up. A family member that is the sole income earner for a household had their car break down. They had no additional income to fix it, no additional income to get another car and failing to get to work would spiral out their financial situation. That day I gave them an old car and told them to keep it. They used it for a month, eventually got the other car fixed and sold the car I gave to them.
• titaphraz 2y ago
  > The thing about witnessing a 7-year-old having their hot lunch tray yanked away and replaced with a cold sandwich It's bizarre that this happens in America.
  • em500 2y ago
    Well in the Netherlands all kids are basically expected to bring their own cold sandwiches every day, so that isn't seen as a punishment. Primary schools don't even have separate tables for meals, let alone canteens: kids just eat their cold sandwiches day after day (and still grow into the tallest people in the world).
    • titaphraz 2y ago
      > in the Netherlands all kids are basically expected to bring their own cold sandwiches every day Nothing wrong with that. But there's a massive difference of everyone bringing their sandwiches vs. everyone getting a hot meal but little Johnny having his yanked away because his parents can't afford it.
• codelikeawolf 2y ago
  When I first started high school, my parents worked a lot, so they left me to fend for myself and I was terrible about packing lunches, so lunchtime was always stressful. I ended up getting a job washing dishes in the school kitchen, which got me a ticket for a free lunch. We weren't rich, but we were definitely comfortably middle class. I'm sure there were a lot of kids like me. It would have been a lot better if the food was free. Edit: grammar
• choeger 2y ago
  What I don't get about lunch in school is where this assumption comes from that it has to be a warm and complete meal, ideally with starter and dessert. I am really wondering about that. School is more like an office job than a construction site or other heavy work and thus would not a sandwich and a salad be more appropriate? It would be much easier to offer good quality this way, especially when it comes to fruits and vegetables. The stuff you get when cooking with a limited budget for hundreds of people is seldom good or healthy.
  • thrwzzz 2y ago
    I was bringing my own sandwitches when I was at primary school, sometimes I forgot to take them- that's the only time when I was hungry and that's what made me to make my sandwitch in the morning even if I was feeling lazy or if I did not like the smell of it (we were bringing our sandwitches in backpacks). I later learned some kids had hot meal in the cantine (that's also when I learned there was a cantine in my school), but somehow I never thought I need a hot meal at school myself. It was nice to be a kid :)
  • em-bee 2y ago
    because that is what a lunch looks like in our culture. you can get away with a something simple for a mid morning break if you come home early enough so that you can have a lunch at home. even at an office job i expect a warm meal for lunch. and i would also say that school for children is more hard work than an office job is for adults so the comparison is not fair.
• ta1243 2y ago
  > and eliminated lunch debt at 12 schools. That’s 12 schools where kids don’t get their trays taken away For a few weeks. Then presumably there will be debt again. If you get a major wound then applying a tourniquet can be a great move to stabilise the patient until the problem can be fixed. If you have a memory leak, killing the process and restarting it is a great move to get the system working again, but you need to tackle the root cause. The only solution I can see would be for the state to pay for everyone's meals
  • em-bee 2y ago
    yes, and that takes lobbying effort. and who is going to do that lobbying? this project introduces new people to the problem, and thus increases the amount of people motivated to lobby for a change.
• sebstefan 2y ago
  It's a no brainer. Kids perform better at school if they're fed lunch. If it improves test scores those lunches pay for themselves in basic externalities when the kid grows up with better chances in life. I don't recall the numbers but the return on investment is worth it It's always more expensive in the long run to allow kids to go hungry
• veunes 2y ago
  His daughter's question nails it: "Why don't they just let them eat?" The fact that we don't have a clear, defensible answer to that tells you everything
• yapyap 2y ago
  Paying off lunch debt as individuals is very double. Of course it feels good cause you are helping people but at the same time you are helping the symptom not the cause. Just to keep paying the debts is like to just keep plugging the dyke while new holes keep opening up. You need a new system. What that means in this case is government intervention! 2.8 million is NOTHING to the U.S. government, in 2023 the US defense had 1.9 trillion dollars unaccounted for. TRILLION. [1] Some quick math gives: 2.8 million / 1.9 trillion * 100 = 0,00014736842 % If the government gave a fuck or was forced to give a fuck this lunch debt bullshit would not be a thing. 1. https://coloradonewsline.com/2023/12/06/pentagon-cant-pass-audit/ https://coloradonewsline.com/2023/12/06/pentagon-cant-pass-a...
• AStonesThrow 2y ago
  Something that cannot be ignored, but seems quite glossed over in this thread of 400 comments: elementary and middle school are typically the best and most important day-care service for working parents. Especially anyone who is blue-collar and does not choose their schedule, any single parent who cannot be home at all during the day, double-income parents who are likewise absent. It is one thing for comparatively comfortable white-collar homemaker moms to lovingly pack a little lunch for all their kids the night before. It's another thing entirely for them to send their kids packing and rely on the school itself to provide that nutrition. And personally I see this as a bit of a dilemma. Because parenting and homemaking skills are often honed by the practice of preparing lunches and providing for the children. If you, as a parent, are not accustomed to doing this, you're going to bond less with those children, you're going to rely on state assistance more, and your children are going to bond less with you, resulting in a more distant relationship than one forged through the common experience of acquiring, preparing, and consuming food. So free school lunch assistance is, in some ways, mandatory for a culture of working parents, and certainly if we're going to keep children out of the industrialized workforce, we need to keep them in school and well-fed. But at some point, children become quite dependent on the state and they are going to look to the state to provide other needs, as well, if the parents are not stepping up to that. So will children grow into full-fledged contributors who pull their own weight, or will they simply exist to expand the welfare state?
• gadders 2y ago
  This doesn't really exist in the UK, I think. Most people get free school meals if they're on state benefits (as I did when I was younger). ** However - what a great thing to do to just ring up a school and pay off their debt, and then start a charity to do that and advocate for policy change. I think people don't realise how much impact they can have when they just take action. You don't have to be anyone special. //edit//** Or rather, lunch debt does not exist. Free lunch shaming definitely does. A colleague that had free school meals told me that at her school, people with free school meals had to get their meals last.
• trelane 2y ago
  Seems like the author has rediscovered charities.
• Meneth 2y ago
  Upon seeing the term "school lunch debt", I was confused. My country has had free school lunches for all students since before I was born. Not a matter of economy or socialism, I thought, for everyone can afford food, but just convenience. "7-year-old clarity" indeed.
• turtlebits 2y ago
  I read a recent comment that changed my mind about school lunches (free for all, not just those that need it). Essentially, if you're legally required to be somewhere, meals should be provided.
  • kjkjadksj 2y ago
    Tell that to the dmv line. I’ll be happy with starting with bathrooms.
  • kbelder 2y ago
    I think that this is perhaps the most important point in this whole discussion.
• pascoej 2y ago
  It’s definitely an experience to see the food you got thrown away and be given an apple and some bread instead. Many kids would opt to bring in a pack of ramen, crush it up, add the seasoning and eat it dry instead. Many (myself included) just wouldn’t eat to avoid the humiliation. But, hey, at least we had that most expensive high school football stadium in the world for a time!
• smileysteve 2y ago
  When I read the first paragraph, my immediate question is, is the PB&J alternative meal actually healthier and more reflective of the nutritional needs (and desires ) of a student than the more expensive normal meals (my thoughts turn to chicken tenders, pizza, corn dogs) I personally reflect back to realize that I started requesting parents / personally making sandwiches ~3rd grade because I was tired of flavorless and relatively unhealthy and repeated cafeteria style food at high price. (and also coming to a similar conclusion regarding the Cafeteria when at University).
  • Symbiote 2y ago
    "Cafeteria style" doesn't have to mean chicken tenders and pizza. Today at work in Denmark, the cafeteria served vegetable stroganoff with mushrooms and roast potatoes, chili con carne with rice, and/or turkey with mushroom sauce, pearl barley and roast root vegetables. The salads were a potato salad with red onions, chives, mustard and radish; pearl barley with apricot, soya beans and peppers; lentils, beetroot and feta cheese. Schools/universities here have similar options.
• kubatyszko 2y ago
  What really baffles me is that as a society we allow say a 7 year old to take on debt!
• badlibrarian 2y ago
  Interesting reading in the linked article beyond the quote. "In the Reagan administration’s attempt to slash $1.5 billion from children’s nutrition funding, school lunch program requirements were worded (whether deliberately or not) so as to conceivably allow for designating ketchup as a vegetable..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup_as_a_vegetable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup_as_a_vegetable
• asdf6969 2y ago
  In Canada we don’t have school lunches and I’ve always found the concept ridiculous. Sending a lunch can be as simple as a sandwich with some fruit and veggies on the side. It’s cheap and takes about 5 minutes to make. Some people are trying to introduce school lunches now even though we already have a child benefit program which gives parents money specifically for this. To me it seems like it’s actually just a way to cover up the fact that millions of parents are child abusers who don’t feed their kids. I just can’t get around the idea that we’re enabling neglect. Very few schools (if any) have a cafeteria that serves food. Everyone brings their lunch and it works well.
• londons_explore 1y ago
  So this debt would normally be paid by the parents of each child? Do they pay like a couple of bucks per meal and if they forget to pay then a debt accrues?
• londons_explore 1y ago
  It does seem odd to decide to spend $$$$ of public money educating a child, but to refuse to spend $ feeding that same child, but still spending $ building a billing and accounting system to figure out whose parents haven't paid.
• wanderingmind 1y ago
  Its amazing that US still doesn't have free school lunches. India started free school lunches in early 60s from southern state of Tamil Nadu and now default across the country. It was one of the main factors that reduced malnutrition in children and improved school attendance. People just sent kids to schools, so they can have a decent meal.
• tobir 1y ago
  I've had this slowly creeping realization that everything in this world is just some persons choice. Seems like an obvious and banal statement. But this is a perfect example. We all think that there is some specialization you need, some certificate, there's something special about the people who do x thing, you need some committee or approval. But no, you just need start doing something. And if you stick to it people will probably join you sooner or later.
• welcome_dragon 1y ago
  There are two sides to the "school lunch debt" problem. Underprivileged kids on one side and everyone else on the other. I fully support paying off/forgiving lunch accounts of underprivileged kids. But. I live in an affluent area. You have kids running up hundreds of dollars a semester because they just don't care. Oh my parents made me lunch? I'll throw it out and get school lunch. Oh my friends want ice cream so I'm buying everyone ice cream. Then the end of the school year comes and it's time to square up those accounts. Guess what? "I didn't tell my kid they can do that. I'm not paying". Then the school district bends to the will of the parents and eat the cost. Fuck those people.
  • lurking_swe 1y ago
    This could be easily solved by setting up an automated monthly “school lunch bill” that’s sent to the parent(s). Even if it’s for informational purposes only. The issue isn’t really the child’s actions, all kids are immature. It’s the parent failing to take responsibility for their child. And they can’t do that if they don’t know what’s going on at school, right? And you could also solve this another way. If the kid ran up a bill and their parents are poor (easy to prove with a tax return statement or a pay stub), then everything is forgiven and the school eats the cost. If the parents are not poor, then simply don’t allow the child to expense food next school year. The parents will “suddenly” have a change of heart lol. Or the kid will eat their boxed lunch. :) But even so, this isn’t the end of the world. I’m OK with some dumb rich kids getting a free lunch if it also helps the poor kids.
• rurban 1y ago
  His "Lunch Money" blog: https://dbracken.substack.com/ https://dbracken.substack.com/ It's embarrassing