As a food systems student, I’ve spent years studying how policy shapes what ends up on our plates. One of the biggest policy challenges I can’t stop thinking about is this: In the wealthiest country in the world, families with kids are the most food insecure — yet our policy response to that is a form asking parents to prove they are poor enough. That form isn’t just humiliating, it’s an inadequate tool for the problems we actually have. Maine, California and Vermont have already proved there’s a better option with Universal School Meals, where public school kids eat meals at no cost with no paperwork required. The right tool to address childhood food insecurity already exists — but will our policy makers use it?
The standard model uses “means testing” — a way to prove that family’s income falls below a federally set poverty threshold in order for their kids to qualify for free meals. We’ve consistently seen that this model excludes many families who are experiencing genuine food insecurity. In order to be eligible for free meals, a family of four must make less than $35,000 annually — yet a livable salary in the lowest-cost states is nearly $80,000. For families who don’t qualify the cost of packed lunches can rival that of utility bills, putting strain those who make “too much,” regardless of their need. After the pandemic-era universal meals programs ended, food insufficiency spiked most sharply among those kids whose families made just above the eligibility threshold. Hunger, it turns out, doesn’t obey calculated income boundaries.
This isn’t a temporary problem. Recent cuts to SNAP and Medicaid will take 18 million kids off free meals over the next 10 years. This comes at the same time that the administration has seen fit to stop measuring food insecurity altogether. Fortunately, we have a solution — and we already know it works.
Universal school meals have no cost to families, no means testing and no stigma. This is the most failsafe policy action we can take to improve food security for kids and families.
The evidence from the pandemic alone is striking. During COVID, universal school meals were implemented nationwide, and family food insecurity rapidly dropped. Once those programs were removed, it rose again sharply. Though this lesson was a hard one, it proved that universal school meals was possible and effective.
Importantly, universal school meals can have a positive impact on all families. One study from New York found that universal meals improved participation by both low- and higher-income students — suggesting that price was an important factor for families above the income line, and that stigma and paperwork were a burden for families who did qualify. Studies have also shown that school meals are frequently the most nutritionally-important meals kids eat all day, and that access to school meals directly improves cognitive function, behaviour, academic performance and long-term health outcomes.
I know it’s not as easy as just implementing a policy, and that the results of policy are often underwhelming. But our last policy amending school meals was over 15 years ago. We’re more than overdue for an update. The 2010 Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act substantially improved childhood nutrition — but kids and families still feel like school lunches fall short on quality, and they’re uneasy about the reliance on conventionally grown and processed foods. Moreover, these programs cost money — and they have to be strategically implemented in order to meet their goals. These issues are valid, but they’re solvable — and an evidence-based policy update would give us the chance to address them.
Viable pathways to universal school meals already exist and have proven very successful. The Community Eligibility Program makes it possible for school districts to serve free school meals to all students if over 40% of them qualify for programs like SNAP. It also reduces administrative burden for both staff and parents. This model has been adopted by nine states so far, each finding that universal meals ensures more kids have full bellies in school.
Currently, HR 7542, the Kids Need Lunch Act (the most recent in a long line of proposed universal meal packages), is sitting untouched in the halls of Congress. It would amend the existing school meals policy to provide meals at no cost to all kids. As a student of food policy I know how slow moving, messy, and imperfect it is. I know how hard it is to gain bi-partisan support. But this is a rare case where we have the evidence, we have the infrastructure, and we have a model that’s proven to work. An updated school meals policy isn’t a radical proposition — it’s a long overdue correction to a policy that wasn’t designed to reach everyone who needed it.
Our kids deserve better than means testing. They deserve lunch.
Sharon MacDougall recently graduated from the University of New Hampshire and studied sustainable agriculture. She lives in Portsmouth.