No child should face the pain of going to school hungry, especially in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Due to serious policy failures, 1-in-5 kids in the United States is living with hunger.
For decades, policymakers have successfully used our education system as a way to ensure kids are fed. Children spend an average of six hours a day at school, so feeding them breakfast and lunch there is a vital step to ensure we keep them from going hungry.
However, many hungry students do not receive the support they need. Students who are unable to afford school meals and do not receive them for free or at reduced cost are faced with two options: go hungry or go into debt. The national public school meal debt is roughly $176 million a year.
Instead of improving this flawed system, policymakers are eager to put the programs that keep our students fed on the chopping block. The House Budget Committee’s draft menu of reconciliation options outlines several ways to cut access to school meals and make it more difficult for students to receive the food they need.
School Meals Under Attack
As Congress considers budget cuts, programs that support kids, such as free school meals, become easy targets. Kids can’t vote, and they don’t have political action committees or lobbying power. But investing in children is not only a strong moral decision, it is a strong financial move. Investing in kids leads to better health outcomes, higher educational attainment, and increased earnings as adults. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that every dollar the federal government invests in programs that benefit children can amount to $10 or more in societal returns.
The House Budget Committee’s menu of potential cuts features two different proposals to cut school meals. One would weaken schools’ ability to get meals covered through the Community Eligibility Provision, which is vital to ensuring that high-needs schools can provide free breakfast and lunch to all students who need them. The second would create new income verification requirements, adding additional hurdles for students to receive free or reduced-price meals. These changes could discourage families from applying for free meals and make it more difficult for students to access the assistance they need.
The Community Eligibility Provision currently allows high-needs schools to serve free meals to all students based on the percentage of students that participate in means-tested programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, and Temporary Assistance for Need Families (TANF). Even without cutting school meals specifically, cuts to these other programs would make it more difficult for students to receive the meals they need. The budget framework adopted by the House of Representatives in early March makes it clear they plan to cut these programs. For example, the budget resolution instructs the Committee on Agriculture to cut $230 billion over 10 years from the programs under its authority, an amount that will require cutting SNAP or restricting eligibility. Similarly, the Committee on Energy and Commerce is instructed to make $880 billion in cuts over 10 years, an amount that will require cutting Medicaid, shifting costs to states and forcing them to reduce eligibility, benefits and services, and support for providers that serve children. These cuts would impact children’s access to health care and food – both at home and at school.
Child Labor is Not the Answer
Earlier this year, Republican Rep. Rich McCormick of Georgia suggested that instead of depending on school meals, hungry kids should get jobs. “You’re telling me that kids who stay at home instead of going to work at Burger King, McDonald’s during the summer should stay at home and get their free lunch instead of going to work?” he said when asked about federal funding freezes that endangered school meals.
The argument that we should resort to child labor instead of providing free meals should concern us all. Over the past few years, states have been rolling back their child labor protections, pushing policies that eliminate minimum age restrictions and limits on working hours. In fact, loosening child labor protections may actually be an objective of the Trump Administration. Project 2025, the conservative agenda that President Trump’s early actions have closely followed, outlines ways to eliminate protections against hazardous work for children.
In early 2020, nearly 1-in-10 children worldwide were subject to child labor. Illegal child labor also has been on the rise in the U.S. in recent years as employers seek the cheapest labor possible. We’re not talking about teenagers with after-school babysitting gigs – child labor oftentimes involves long hours at dangerous work. Examples include children who were found to be working overnight shifts cleaning dangerous slaughterhouses. Work often interferes with a child’s education and often inflicts lifelong damage on their health and well-being. The prevalence of child labor is closely related to the persistence of poverty.
While youth should be empowered to work in safe and legal conditions, the Congressman makes a flawed argument that blames children for being unable to provide for themselves. It ignores policy failures across the country that have led to increased rates of children experiencing homelessness, extreme food insecurity, and a rise in child poverty. There is no circumstance in which it is acceptable to condition a child’s food on their labor.
Policymakers Must Prioritize Fighting Child Hunger and Poverty
Funding school meals for children in need is an example of a highly effective and low-cost way to support underserved children across the country. School meal programs play a vital role in curbing student hunger and make up less than 0.5% of annual U.S. federal spending.
Instead of blaming children for their hunger, Congress should work toward solutions that create better outcomes for children. Child poverty is a willful policy decision, and lawmakers know how to fight it. For example, in 2021 the expanded Child Tax Credit helped lift nearly 3 million children out of poverty. If lawmakers decided to curb child poverty, kids wouldn’t have to depend on free school meals.
Members of Congress should spend less time blaming kids for circumstances they didn’t create and more time addressing child poverty, strengthening our public schools, and protecting children from unsafe labor practices.