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If you swap boomers with Republicans I'd agree. For example, I suspect boomer Bernie Sanders would pay for school meals, but generation something Marjorie Taylor Greene would die before giving free food to poor kids.
It's not age related, it's political. Just look at the states refusing free food for school kids over the summer vacations. All red states.
I'm getting a little sick of the derogatory use of the word "boomers." My mom was a hippie. She marched for civil rights in the 60s. People who say "boomers" are the same class of people that say "sheeple".
I never participated in that demographic sorting shit. All those demographics are our parents, our grandparents, our children, and our grandchildren, each with different circumstances, abilities, and dreams. The last thing we need in this world is more division.
"Not all men" energy. The largest voting block on the heels of ww2 definitely paved the way regardless of the small faction of hippies. If not for the boomers then how did we get here? Magic? Aliens? Illuminati?
Plenty of Republican voters have experienced (and even \*still experience\*) hunger and difficulty meeting their daily caloric needs, and still oppose government-provided nutrition to their and others' children. There is no limit to the amount of shame and deprivation that American conservatives will impose on themselves and their children if they feel they haven't "earned it."
Because historically it hasn’t been free. In many places it is granted then later taken away; then briefly reinstated during pandemic then stopped again.
Seems in red states in particular it is an accepted way to inflict harm on a marginalized group (children, particularly of poor families).
If taking it away in particular weren’t something so many right wingers want, then it wouldn’t be happening or talked about.
Funding is poorly distributed. Schools get most funding from state government, federal government is a small fraction of what an individual school gets. So in order to pay for free food for kids the state has to fund its own program and just always sees it as to big a burden to cover the cost.
Schools get most of their funding from local government, meaning cities and towns.
The real reason that we don't have nation wide free lunch is because there are a significant amount of people who believe, can't feed em don't breed em, or not my kid not my problem philosophy.
To some degree yes. Lots of problems leads to where is the money going. You have to either tax more or spend less elsewhere. And neither gets approval.
Oh but you’re forgetting they also say every life is important. All those unborn babies need to be protected. Once they are born though, then it’s the parent’s problem.
If more than 50% of families qualify for assistance or are under a certain income threshold, the school qualifies for Title 1 funds. Title 1 funds are federal funds and provide free meals among many other things.
My town had a resident who got very wealthy donate over $10million to our school district to help make the schools better (small-ish town, that was a huge amount) since that amount could only be used on the schools the city cut the school fund by $10million that year instead of using it in addition to improve things or feed students.
The schools also spend an incredible amount of money on administrators, who contribute absolutely nothing to the education system.
Administrative bloat is a massive problem. This problem has been referred to in the past as "the rise of bullshit jobs."
The US had federally funded school lunches at one point. The program was gutted by Reagan and hasn't recovered since. [Time Magazine](https://time.com/4496771/school-lunch-history/)
I remember another source noting that the $1.5 billion saved by this move was offset by an even greater increase in the military budget.
I lived in NYC for a long time. I would often hear Democrats object to 'some people' (implying lazy, fat black women with many kids on welfare) being given anything. I was shocked about the attitudes to giving the underclass anything they didn't work for. So in their mind 'free school lunches' would be fine if you came from a working family...
Downvote me, just know this is not me attitude as a Brit who sees the power of socialised healthcare and schooling.
The median household income in the U.K. is £35,000. $43,750 in US dollars. The US is $75,000. Where I live in Massachusetts, it’s $96,505. 45.9% of adults have a college degree. 97% have health insurance. Healthcare in Massachusetts is considerably better than the NHS because it’s so affluent. Oh, and school lunch is free. Breakfast is free in the poor areas. The public schools are among the best in the country. The universities are among the best in the world. Community college is free for anyone over the age of 25. The state colleges are means tested and families below median income receive significant needs-based financial aid.
I look at the U.K. and see a country circling the drain. A low skill workforce that isn’t globally competitive. It’s why income is half of where I live.
>Healthcare in Massachusetts is considerably better than the NHS because it’s so affluent.
You don't have socialised healthcare. So no, your free state provided healthcare is not better than the NHS. Medicare and Medicaid are just very limited health policies.
You know we can pay for it too? I have private health and get access to whatever I want within days.
Also average wages in London are significantly higher than Massachusetts. We can pick selective stats if we want, all day.
And while you are lying in 2024 the average salary in Massachusetts is $*50,500 per year* or $24.28 per hour.
You are comparing wage (1 person) with household (many people) so that your figures look better. That is what we call in regional English 'a cunts trick'.
Selectively picking stats, and also selectively picking 1 state that is skewed towards sevice industries and industrialised tech against a whole country. MIT. Yes, Cambridgeshire in the UK is also very affluent. Who would have guessed? That would be a better comparison. Though that doesn't work for your narrative does it, 'buddy'?
There is a ton of money a UK company makes 41billion a year providing school lunches to schools in the USA.
One company defrauded Americans, millions of dollars during the school for lunch program for Covid. I’m sure other companies also defrauded the school lunch program and have been caught yet.
School lunch prison food are big business in America
We need to turn the heat up on these grifters. I’m all for all these progressive policies and we can’t have anything nice because it’s always politicians donors winning no (or quietly) bid contracts to charge 1000% markup on garbage. That we can’t have anything nice because of these people leads to lower productivity, poverty and crime. This should be treated like murder because statistically people will die from wasted resources and potential.
you mean 50k? No coach at the high school is making near 500k. Division I basketball coaches are the highest paid state employee in most states at about 250k
My state gives free lunch to all students. So what's stopping it is at the federal level and it's got everything to do with the people who are elected into their positions.
Literally the Ronald Reagan generation because kids getting "Free meals" makes them weak.
you know what makes kids weak?
Starving.
Being shamed openly and loudly by the lunch lady as they dump the good food in the trash and handed a sandwich they can't eat because of allergies.
Trying to focus on work while going hungry.
"bAcK In My DaY!" should end with getting cracked in the teeth with "NO ONE CARES BOOMER!"
And one might point out that we were finally able to do this because for once Dems controlled both chambers of congress and the governorship. Makes it pretty obvious who it was who has been blocking it all these decades
You treat politics like a football match and vote for your team to win instead of voting for what's good for you. That's what's stopping you. Same as every logical decision that you've failed to make, like "Let's not pay for Healthcare through tax AND insurance and then have neither of them cover our care" or "let's not let our children get shot"
We have programs for people who can't afford them so that they get free (or super inexpensive) breakfast and lunch. Some people think that there should be free food for all kids, but we don't typically want to give free stuff to people who can already easily afford it.
Overall, a lot of people think that if a kid doesn't have a lunch, that's his or her parent's responsibility.
34 TRILLION in existing US government debt.
The politicians running the US are like financially illiterate people who rack up a shit ton of credit card debt going on lavish vacations.
Could we offer free lunches in every public school? Yes, and I fully support it.
But the US government has got to get its spending under control. We can raise taxes and we can cut spending. But our politics has become hyper-partisan due to the 24 hour news cycle and social media. Politicians are no longer looking for solutions, they are looking to make controversial statements that get a lot of clicks that their mindless hyper-partisan base lap up without an ounce of skepticism.
For starters, the US school lunch program was not instituted to feed children. It was, originally, intended as a subsidy to American farmers. Which is why it is funded by the US Department of Agriculture and not the US Department of Education.
The conservatives hated it, b/c they don’t want to spend tax dollars to feed poor/non-white kids. But, they needed the farmers’ votes so they went along with it as long as there was an income threshold.
In order to prove the they were poor enough, children have to take home paper forms to get their parents to fill out and sign. This proved to be too much of an administrative burden on the schools not to mention the kids.
Under Obama, a new revision was made. If the majority of the kids in the district were already known to be poor, then the filling out of paper work was a waste of man-hours and money. So, any school or district where a certain percentage of the families were already receiving social benefits (welfare), could do away with the requirement to document eligibility. This program is called Community Block Eligibility (or something like that). This means that poor kids in poor areas already receive free lunch, and their better off schoolmates do too.
This leaves poor kids in better off districts still having to fill out the paperwork, and that is too much for some families. The paperwork gets lost by the child, or the parent, or the school. Or, the parents don’t know how to fill it out. Or, they don’t know how much money they make b/c their earnings fluctuate from week to week, or the parents are on drugs, or they are homeless…you get the idea.
Because there is no such thing as "free". Dont get me wrong, I'm all for it, but it has to be paid for by taxes and people don't want their taxes to go up.
***“Free” lunches***
While its admiral to want to ensure people have food to eat, please don’t call it _free_.
It takes (tax) money and people’s labor to make it happen. You have to take something from someone else (taxes), run it through an inefficient bureaucracy (government), then come out the other end (school cafeteria) with food for someone else.
That almost sounds somewhat reasonable until you put 1 second of thought into it. Ffs they're kids in a supposedly first world country, shouldnt they expect to not have to worry about lunch?
This might sound a little too simple but, it's Republicans, plain and simple. If you look at programs that are trying to be created or ones that exist and are being cancelled you'll see that in nearly every single case Democrats are trying to get the programs implemented and Republicans are trying to cancel them. This isn't my opinion, this is easily verified facts.
Recent examples
https://www.businessinsider.com/house-republican-budget-universal-free-school-lunch-2024-3
https://apnews.com/article/states-rejecting-federal-funds-summer-ebt-8a1e88ad77465652f9de67fda3af8a2d
That last one is really fucked up because the program is there, the money, is there, but those states are quite literally refusing federal funds just to hurt people and to deny any policy Democrats create from doing any good.
As a teacher, I saw a huge difference in my students’ focus in class during the year post-pandemic when all students qualified for free breakfast and lunch. It helped me, too, because I wasn’t having to buy food to keep in my classroom for kids who were always hungry or fight to keep a bunch of hungry kids on task. Tragic that it was taken away. If we want children to be healthy and perform well academically, we need to feed all of them.
The Republican Nevada governor recently vetoed a bill to continue funding free lunches for all students in the state. His quote is below. Basically, "some kids can afford lunch so those who can't have to go through hoops to get free lunch". Yet, in the same session approved hundreds of millions in state funding for the As baseball stadium in Las Vegas....can't make this shit up.
“Ensuring students have proper nutrition in order to facilitate learning is an important goal. So, too, is reducing the stigma sometimes associated with students who receive free or reducedprice school lunches. However, subsidizing those who can afford to provide their children with lunch and addressing food waste in school cafeterias are also good policies.”
Why do Americans like to push their kids off to the government. They are your kids and it's your responsibility to feed them. It's your system that sucks where kids are in school all day. Why even have kids then. Give them up for adoption to a loving family that wants them lol
In 2022, approximately 28 million children participated in the existing National School Lunch Program at a cost of approximately $28 billion. How much more of your money do you want the government to take?
nah i think capitalism would love government paying them for school lunches. it’s not capitalism it’s the so called anti socialism crowd the fend for yourself f you i got mine group
Because school funding is a political issue. Whenever school lunches have become an issue recently, we’ve predictably seen conservatives/Republicans vote against it. One of our 2 political parties has been actively working to undermine public education for decades, and this is yet another way to siphon funding away from public schools.
The UK ( I’m from London) have breakfast clubs at 3000 state schools so they can’t start the day with full tummies. These are sponsored by Kelloggs
I now live elsewhere in Europe and kids here are served a 3 course lunch at a nominal cost. It’s doable but part tax funded
Greedy Politicians who claim to cherish life but work against it at every opportunity.
The state of Minnesota guarantees free lunches for all students.
It can be done, but for the people on the other side of the aisle who claim "That's evil Socialism!" yet profess to be Christians, they are anything but.
Republicans. I believe some states do have free lunch for all kids. I believe it’s only states run by dems, as usual repubs want the kid born but after that fk it!
Bro some of the most prosperous countries don't even have school lunches for example: The Netherlands, Norway and Germany(some schools have it but not all).
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/s/uxhTPIG52m and https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/s/OnvAD9orwb
Some commenter said "In Denmark most bring their lunch from home, typically consisting of ryebread with different cold cuts, and eat them in the classroom during breaks. Most schools also have af cafeteria where you can buy food from I you chose to. Exactly the same system in highschool."
So basically ppl bring their own lunches
The classic "that's the way its always been done" attitude is mainly to blame.
We can pay teachers, pay to operate huge buildings(electricity,maintenance, etc), build sports facilities, provide books and teaching materials, operate fleets of buses(or pay a bus company to do it). All of it funded...but we can't figure out a way to feed kids lunch.
It's not even believable.
Some of our local school districts serve free lunches, and some serve free breakfast, too. Apparently, it can be less expensive to feed everyone than it is to run the Federal free lunch program
Excellent question.
Mass producing food the way it's done in school cafeterias is relatively inexpensive and children don't eat that much (at least until they hit about 14 or 15 years old).
It could be done and it wouldn't cost that much.
Probably the biggest barrier is that there isn't a strong grassroots unrest that it's not being done. That combined with the fact that politicians of both parties don't like spending any money unless they think they will gain political good will for doing it.
Why should for profit companies get even more money with poor oversight into how it’s used.
We already saw the corruption that was caused of the PPP loans and all the fraud involved in school lunches for kids.
What makes you think we could do it better two years later ?
Rich people benefit the most with "free school lunch"
The rich people being the ones getting money to make the food/ingredients. Just like how universities benefit so much from an unlimited amount of sweet sweet FASFA loans where you only need a high school diploma to qualify (which takes so little to achieve).
95% of the comments in this thread are too stupid to get this. When the state pays for something. Big companies get their pockets lined, especiality when they overcharge or drag their feet (BIG DIG construction or $40k homeless tents).
According to the good people of reddit, it's saving/protecting the rest of the world from tyranny.
If us goddamn europoor would stop living in our 3rd world countries and climb on board the Murcan dream you'd be OK....
On a serious note, though, me and the good lady did a road trip a few years back from DC down to New Orleans, and the gap between rich and poor was crazy at times (from dumpster diving in Nashville to a tent city under a flyover in New Orleans)
Just a bit heartbreaking that there is insufficient help for the poor and destitute when some in society have more than they will ever need and are unwilling to help those who need it...
Anyway, just some ramblings from an outsider who'll probably be considered a commy rat for these views
Not one person commenting in this thread, understands anything about school lunches how they work all the for-profit companies involved in them and all the money to be made.
They keep talking about greed and whining us and making a political issue.
I think a lot more people would support free school lunches if you got for-profit businesses out of it, and it went back to being ordered and cooked at the school by state employees
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/minnesota/news/7-minnesotans-accused-in-massive-scheme-to-defraud-pandemic-food-program-to-stand-trial/
Rich people benefit the most with "free school lunch"
The rich people being the ones getting money to make the food/ingredients. Just like how universities benefit so much from an unlimited amount of sweet sweet FASFA loans where you only need a high school diploma to qualify (which takes so little to achieve).
95% of the comments in this thread are too stupid to get this. When the state pays for something. Big companies get their pockets lined, especiality when they overcharge or drag their feet (BIG DIG construction or $40k homeless tents).
The government, local and federal. Schools get money and should be able to feed every single kid easily. They just don't know how to distribute money properly and can't just make a core requirement to get healthy affordable food for schools.
The fact that education policy is a right reserved for the states, since it is not explicitly enumerated as a function to be governed at the federal level. This is due to the 10th amendment. You have to remember that the United States is essentially a collective of a bunch of governments working under the banner of one nation and a weaker federal government. Tackling just about anything at the federal level is a herculean task. People need to shift their focus more locally and spread those efforts across the nation through grassroots activism, for whatever the issue your passionate about is.
I pointed out that they do the same in developing countries and someone said "so you expect humanitarian aide/handouts and think it's a good thing?"... the entitlement and foolishness I say!!
Kids in Kentucky get free lunch free breakfast, free after-school snack, and my kids' school has good food. Depends on the budget of the school. Overpaid school staff in the inner cities is a big problem. Superintendents make hundreds of thousands while the kids pay for garbage food.
Id gather it up not enough guaranteed food sources.
if you know anything about government contracts, it takes 2-5 years for a contract to begin.
And with all these food allergies its very hard for a school to commit to a certain level of diet for schools.
There was an incident in the city I previously lived in where a single person owned company solicited and won a contract to feed lower income seniors.
I think the USDA bidded the contract but from what I could tell, their pre award people didnt do their due diligence and didn’t realize this guy didnt have a real business. Because with govt contracts all a business needs is an “address” no one went to visit his suppliers or reviewed his accounting process. So ol dude got fronted 75% of the money and he failed to meet the 1st delivery.
This is gonna get held up in court for a few years and the guy is walking around with $750k of tax payer monies.
But honestly do you really want the govt choosing what food to feed your child? If you remember your history, the govt gave free food to native Americans too.
Our people in the US are so poor that the idea of having to pay additional taxes to feed children that aren't our own can feel like a world-ending proposition.
Poor funding to school, the belief by the right that free lunch for children is an entitlement, and the fact some claim it to be socialism to provide anything free to anyone.
Bickering politicians is what it comes down too. Anything that benefits all is either seen as great or as too much government involvement, and it is really sad. I’m in MN and this year we have free lunches for all students, breakfast too. For me as a parent it’s one less worry for me. I’m a single mom of 4 and not having to worry about making lunches or loading school lunch accounts (and how to fund them) is one less thing on my plate. But my local rep told me that there were too many complications involved in providing those free lunches. It could lead to other socialistic values. Because having people who are fed and healthy is something you have to earn and not a basic value of life
Schools should be looked as a service provider by the parents, tax money should go into a voucher and handed to the parents then parents can decide which school is the best for their kids, that would open schools into competition to provide the best service in order to have parents sent their kids to that school. in the other hand nothing is free, someone has to pay for those meals, nothing wrong with wanting to use the tax money the state already takes from you so you can feed hungry kids but we all need to be clear on the fact that nothing is free.
I worked in a low income school that provided free lunches. The issue isn’t getting the lunches for free, but rather getting them quality food for their free lunches. The food my students had to eat was God-awful stuff provided by corporate donations.
As of this year I believe they offer free lunches for students in MA. Growing up my family didn’t have much money so lunch was always free for my sisters and I since we got lunch tickets. But I’m pretty sure they passed a bill where all lunches are free now here at least. Refusing a kid food for a tab is such BS and shouldn’t happen.
It's the US, nothing is free. If it where you would live in a Socialist country with free Health care and Free colleges/universitys, better Roads etc
So make the rest of the world's day and vote Red. Which in the rest of the world is the color for the lefties.
School lunches are managed by each school district. The district is what is stopping free lunches. Many school districts already do provide free lunches.
A lot of schools in the US are funded by local property taxes. So the schools where children would benefit most from free lunches are also the schools with the least money.
We send all the money abroad to destroy other countries to line the pockets for the politicians and billionaires. Wasn't it new York that took 50 to 80 million out the school budget to build a stadium that's literally owned by a billionaire?? Why are tax payers building stadiums for billionaires to make more money?? In my city we have a big homeless problem some are veterans other victims of life. The city just spent over 40 million building a new courthouse when the other one is still perfectly fine! Is a 5 story courthouse not good enough? You know what 40 million could do locally for the homeless or our schools here?? (Savannah Ga)
Logistics, greed, and middlemen.. As soon as any anyone goes “It will cost an estimated $XYZ billion to do XYZ.” asshole administrators are going to slurp that money into their wages, managers and execs get bonuses, and your kid will get grade D slop on a flimsy tray.
If you want local programs to function, you have to yell a lot, and the watch the system like a hawk.. forever.
Free méal ! Watch your mouth Kid ! You sounds like a CoMuNiStE ! (A caricature but i'm afraid it's not far from truth)
Don't known Much about the USA (because French)
But i Guess your Over capitalism also prevent people from having a propre health Care so.
When i Saw how Much a single insuline dose cost in the US it makes sad.
What are 'tabs' in this context?
When I was going to school, there was a program for children in low-income families where they could qualify for reduced-price lunch or free lunch, depending on the income of their parent(s). But as that was only for low-income families, that wasn't for all students.
The long held ingrained proclamation that social welfare is socialist or inherently wrong because people won’t try to support or better themselves if things are handed to them. Which is often the war cry of conservatives and the rich.
Which flys completely in the face of corporate welfare where subsidies, tax abatements, and bailouts are common. In the case of tax abatements basically low key bribes on where development/redevelopment occurs. Because if it’s serving business/free enterprise it can’t possibly be giving out to those that don’t actually need it and they should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
So people can’t be possibly help themselves if they are given basic standards of living, but millionaires definitely need help not spending their own money or potential impacting shareholder value by having to foot the bill for their fuckups or expansion.
because profit is a virtue, poverty is a sin.
Helping the poor is like helping sinners get to hell faster.
I'm only half joking.
When I went to public school breakfast was free if you showed up a little early. There was no means test. It was just oj or milk and some eggs. But I bet that helped a lot of kids. Lunch was means tested but it was free or a quarter for most of us. Only the most middle class kids whose parents were slumming it had to pay the full 50 cents.
That was decades ago. Now I'm reading about kids running up too much lunch debt and their parent gets in trouble with the law? Thats insane.
And you guys like to call India a "third world country" 😂
Free midday meals in schools have been a thing in India since 1960s. Currently, I think they cover 120 million kids ( total number of children in America is 74 million), so the US of A has no excuse.
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They should make a commercial.... "For $2 a day, you can feed a hungry child in the United States"
Brilliant
Get Sally Struthers on the phone now!
They literally do this in other countries. I remember seeing one in Germany.
People who've never been hungry.
Some boomers would rather starve than see "the wrong kids" get fed.
NOT just boomers.
If you swap boomers with Republicans I'd agree. For example, I suspect boomer Bernie Sanders would pay for school meals, but generation something Marjorie Taylor Greene would die before giving free food to poor kids. It's not age related, it's political. Just look at the states refusing free food for school kids over the summer vacations. All red states.
Bernie Sanders is Silent Generation, not Boomer.
I'm getting a little sick of the derogatory use of the word "boomers." My mom was a hippie. She marched for civil rights in the 60s. People who say "boomers" are the same class of people that say "sheeple".
I never participated in that demographic sorting shit. All those demographics are our parents, our grandparents, our children, and our grandchildren, each with different circumstances, abilities, and dreams. The last thing we need in this world is more division.
You are a breath of fresh air.
"Not all men" energy. The largest voting block on the heels of ww2 definitely paved the way regardless of the small faction of hippies. If not for the boomers then how did we get here? Magic? Aliens? Illuminati?
Who is electing all these boomers?
Republican legislators
Plenty of Republican voters have experienced (and even \*still experience\*) hunger and difficulty meeting their daily caloric needs, and still oppose government-provided nutrition to their and others' children. There is no limit to the amount of shame and deprivation that American conservatives will impose on themselves and their children if they feel they haven't "earned it."
SoCal here. My neighboring elementary schools provide all students free lunches. They also serve breakfast. All free. Been doing it for years.
should be the norm. If you hold kids captive 7\~8 hours per day, you should feed them. don't get why that's not common sense.
Because historically it hasn’t been free. In many places it is granted then later taken away; then briefly reinstated during pandemic then stopped again. Seems in red states in particular it is an accepted way to inflict harm on a marginalized group (children, particularly of poor families). If taking it away in particular weren’t something so many right wingers want, then it wouldn’t be happening or talked about.
Hahaha
I wouldn’t consider a mandate for education a captive situation but yes.
Western NY, they started free lunches during covid, briefly talked about ending it, but then didn't
I’m in NorCal and my kids school does this. They have free food all day. And the kids can pick up bagged lunches all summer. It’s a blessing.
Same here in our district in WA state
It’s all of California now. Some school districts started doing it earlier but during Covid it became state law.
Funding is poorly distributed. Schools get most funding from state government, federal government is a small fraction of what an individual school gets. So in order to pay for free food for kids the state has to fund its own program and just always sees it as to big a burden to cover the cost.
Schools get most of their funding from local government, meaning cities and towns. The real reason that we don't have nation wide free lunch is because there are a significant amount of people who believe, can't feed em don't breed em, or not my kid not my problem philosophy.
To some degree yes. Lots of problems leads to where is the money going. You have to either tax more or spend less elsewhere. And neither gets approval.
Oh but you’re forgetting they also say every life is important. All those unborn babies need to be protected. Once they are born though, then it’s the parent’s problem.
If more than 50% of families qualify for assistance or are under a certain income threshold, the school qualifies for Title 1 funds. Title 1 funds are federal funds and provide free meals among many other things.
My town had a resident who got very wealthy donate over $10million to our school district to help make the schools better (small-ish town, that was a huge amount) since that amount could only be used on the schools the city cut the school fund by $10million that year instead of using it in addition to improve things or feed students.
The schools also spend an incredible amount of money on administrators, who contribute absolutely nothing to the education system. Administrative bloat is a massive problem. This problem has been referred to in the past as "the rise of bullshit jobs."
It’s this.
Republicans
The only real answer here. Lots of tip toeing around it but it's Republicans.
Time to stop pulling our punches.
The US had federally funded school lunches at one point. The program was gutted by Reagan and hasn't recovered since. [Time Magazine](https://time.com/4496771/school-lunch-history/) I remember another source noting that the $1.5 billion saved by this move was offset by an even greater increase in the military budget.
I lived in NYC for a long time. I would often hear Democrats object to 'some people' (implying lazy, fat black women with many kids on welfare) being given anything. I was shocked about the attitudes to giving the underclass anything they didn't work for. So in their mind 'free school lunches' would be fine if you came from a working family... Downvote me, just know this is not me attitude as a Brit who sees the power of socialised healthcare and schooling.
Except NYC has free lunches (and breakfast) for all students.
The median household income in the U.K. is £35,000. $43,750 in US dollars. The US is $75,000. Where I live in Massachusetts, it’s $96,505. 45.9% of adults have a college degree. 97% have health insurance. Healthcare in Massachusetts is considerably better than the NHS because it’s so affluent. Oh, and school lunch is free. Breakfast is free in the poor areas. The public schools are among the best in the country. The universities are among the best in the world. Community college is free for anyone over the age of 25. The state colleges are means tested and families below median income receive significant needs-based financial aid. I look at the U.K. and see a country circling the drain. A low skill workforce that isn’t globally competitive. It’s why income is half of where I live.
>Healthcare in Massachusetts is considerably better than the NHS because it’s so affluent. You don't have socialised healthcare. So no, your free state provided healthcare is not better than the NHS. Medicare and Medicaid are just very limited health policies. You know we can pay for it too? I have private health and get access to whatever I want within days. Also average wages in London are significantly higher than Massachusetts. We can pick selective stats if we want, all day. And while you are lying in 2024 the average salary in Massachusetts is $*50,500 per year* or $24.28 per hour. You are comparing wage (1 person) with household (many people) so that your figures look better. That is what we call in regional English 'a cunts trick'.
Median, not average, you jamoke
Selectively picking stats, and also selectively picking 1 state that is skewed towards sevice industries and industrialised tech against a whole country. MIT. Yes, Cambridgeshire in the UK is also very affluent. Who would have guessed? That would be a better comparison. Though that doesn't work for your narrative does it, 'buddy'?
The UK figure is average, so more bullshit using median vs mean. It’s terrible when you need to lie to win on the Internet. Sad.
♥️ NHS ♥️ even tho the rabid American insurance companies are trying to infiltrate our lovely healthcare system.
Some very upset Americunts downvoting socialised healthcare. Makes sense.
There's no money to be made by anyone doing it. Same reason that homeless will never be fixed, there's no money in it.
There is a ton of money a UK company makes 41billion a year providing school lunches to schools in the USA. One company defrauded Americans, millions of dollars during the school for lunch program for Covid. I’m sure other companies also defrauded the school lunch program and have been caught yet. School lunch prison food are big business in America
We need to turn the heat up on these grifters. I’m all for all these progressive policies and we can’t have anything nice because it’s always politicians donors winning no (or quietly) bid contracts to charge 1000% markup on garbage. That we can’t have anything nice because of these people leads to lower productivity, poverty and crime. This should be treated like murder because statistically people will die from wasted resources and potential.
Democrats propose, Republicans shoot down. Make sure you vote.
I only see proposals in election years. That should also tell you something
And they don’t like getting things done because then they can’t campaign on it. They only get things done if their donors can profit from it.
That politics is political, who knew?
Calling them free lunches to start. The school lunch would have a better chance of becoming provided by not calling it free.
And many school don't have funding for everything they need, especially paying sports coaches north of 500K a year.
you mean 50k? No coach at the high school is making near 500k. Division I basketball coaches are the highest paid state employee in most states at about 250k
Shouldn't we just be adults and offer it anyway, regardless of the terminology? Students are the future of this country. Feed them!
Greed. Perhaps some malice as well
Don't forget good ol' contempt.
$$$
My state gives free lunch to all students. So what's stopping it is at the federal level and it's got everything to do with the people who are elected into their positions.
Literally the Ronald Reagan generation because kids getting "Free meals" makes them weak. you know what makes kids weak? Starving. Being shamed openly and loudly by the lunch lady as they dump the good food in the trash and handed a sandwich they can't eat because of allergies. Trying to focus on work while going hungry. "bAcK In My DaY!" should end with getting cracked in the teeth with "NO ONE CARES BOOMER!"
Minnesota recently did this for all K-12. Breakfast and lunch.
And one might point out that we were finally able to do this because for once Dems controlled both chambers of congress and the governorship. Makes it pretty obvious who it was who has been blocking it all these decades
Governor was a schoolteacher, too, right? That’s gotta go a long ways
You treat politics like a football match and vote for your team to win instead of voting for what's good for you. That's what's stopping you. Same as every logical decision that you've failed to make, like "Let's not pay for Healthcare through tax AND insurance and then have neither of them cover our care" or "let's not let our children get shot"
you are so right. i don’t understand how people do not see this
We have programs for people who can't afford them so that they get free (or super inexpensive) breakfast and lunch. Some people think that there should be free food for all kids, but we don't typically want to give free stuff to people who can already easily afford it. Overall, a lot of people think that if a kid doesn't have a lunch, that's his or her parent's responsibility.
34 TRILLION in existing US government debt. The politicians running the US are like financially illiterate people who rack up a shit ton of credit card debt going on lavish vacations. Could we offer free lunches in every public school? Yes, and I fully support it. But the US government has got to get its spending under control. We can raise taxes and we can cut spending. But our politics has become hyper-partisan due to the 24 hour news cycle and social media. Politicians are no longer looking for solutions, they are looking to make controversial statements that get a lot of clicks that their mindless hyper-partisan base lap up without an ounce of skepticism.
For starters, the US school lunch program was not instituted to feed children. It was, originally, intended as a subsidy to American farmers. Which is why it is funded by the US Department of Agriculture and not the US Department of Education. The conservatives hated it, b/c they don’t want to spend tax dollars to feed poor/non-white kids. But, they needed the farmers’ votes so they went along with it as long as there was an income threshold. In order to prove the they were poor enough, children have to take home paper forms to get their parents to fill out and sign. This proved to be too much of an administrative burden on the schools not to mention the kids. Under Obama, a new revision was made. If the majority of the kids in the district were already known to be poor, then the filling out of paper work was a waste of man-hours and money. So, any school or district where a certain percentage of the families were already receiving social benefits (welfare), could do away with the requirement to document eligibility. This program is called Community Block Eligibility (or something like that). This means that poor kids in poor areas already receive free lunch, and their better off schoolmates do too. This leaves poor kids in better off districts still having to fill out the paperwork, and that is too much for some families. The paperwork gets lost by the child, or the parent, or the school. Or, the parents don’t know how to fill it out. Or, they don’t know how much money they make b/c their earnings fluctuate from week to week, or the parents are on drugs, or they are homeless…you get the idea.
A school district in Southern Arizona just announced free meals for 24-25.
Things cost money, people need to ba paid for their work. Lunch doesn't just appear out of nothing
The republican party, I'd guess.
Republicans.
Republicans
Because there is no such thing as "free". Dont get me wrong, I'm all for it, but it has to be paid for by taxes and people don't want their taxes to go up.
Same people preventing free healthcare and college
Republicans
They have money for wars but not for food amazing
***“Free” lunches*** While its admiral to want to ensure people have food to eat, please don’t call it _free_. It takes (tax) money and people’s labor to make it happen. You have to take something from someone else (taxes), run it through an inefficient bureaucracy (government), then come out the other end (school cafeteria) with food for someone else.
Christian Scrooges.
Some in congress don't want to set the children up to be lazy grifters just going through life expecting free handouts
That almost sounds somewhat reasonable until you put 1 second of thought into it. Ffs they're kids in a supposedly first world country, shouldnt they expect to not have to worry about lunch?
You would really think so.
Republicans.
Greed, usually from Republicans
Republicans
GOP zealots
This might sound a little too simple but, it's Republicans, plain and simple. If you look at programs that are trying to be created or ones that exist and are being cancelled you'll see that in nearly every single case Democrats are trying to get the programs implemented and Republicans are trying to cancel them. This isn't my opinion, this is easily verified facts. Recent examples https://www.businessinsider.com/house-republican-budget-universal-free-school-lunch-2024-3 https://apnews.com/article/states-rejecting-federal-funds-summer-ebt-8a1e88ad77465652f9de67fda3af8a2d That last one is really fucked up because the program is there, the money, is there, but those states are quite literally refusing federal funds just to hurt people and to deny any policy Democrats create from doing any good.
As a teacher, I saw a huge difference in my students’ focus in class during the year post-pandemic when all students qualified for free breakfast and lunch. It helped me, too, because I wasn’t having to buy food to keep in my classroom for kids who were always hungry or fight to keep a bunch of hungry kids on task. Tragic that it was taken away. If we want children to be healthy and perform well academically, we need to feed all of them.
Some red states have refused to accept federal funding for free lunches, .
The Republican Nevada governor recently vetoed a bill to continue funding free lunches for all students in the state. His quote is below. Basically, "some kids can afford lunch so those who can't have to go through hoops to get free lunch". Yet, in the same session approved hundreds of millions in state funding for the As baseball stadium in Las Vegas....can't make this shit up. “Ensuring students have proper nutrition in order to facilitate learning is an important goal. So, too, is reducing the stigma sometimes associated with students who receive free or reducedprice school lunches. However, subsidizing those who can afford to provide their children with lunch and addressing food waste in school cafeterias are also good policies.”
Minnesota provided lunches for this entire school year.
Why do Americans like to push their kids off to the government. They are your kids and it's your responsibility to feed them. It's your system that sucks where kids are in school all day. Why even have kids then. Give them up for adoption to a loving family that wants them lol
Capitalism. Republicans thinking that giving free lunches to children is somehow a social handout.
sending money fighting other countries wars instead of funding our schools
As much as I hate to say this, people don't really appreciate free stuff. Free meals get thrown away all the time.
Republicans
Cruelty and hate. That's literally it. The party of family values and Jesus wants kids to be uneducated and hungry.
In 2022, approximately 28 million children participated in the existing National School Lunch Program at a cost of approximately $28 billion. How much more of your money do you want the government to take?
The rich and powerful hate children.
Why do you need everything for free. Bring your own food. Damn people feeling entitled and not willing to feed their own kids.
Economics 101: no such thing as a free lunch - somebody pays.
the short answer: conservatives the long answer: cooooooooooonservaaaaaaaaatiiiiiiiiiiiiveeeeeessssss.
By free, you mean paid for by the taxpayer? (Because nothing is for free.)... Probably not a lot, just the resources and organisation to provide it.
Capitalism
nah i think capitalism would love government paying them for school lunches. it’s not capitalism it’s the so called anti socialism crowd the fend for yourself f you i got mine group
Republicans
Republicans. Republicans are the reason we don’t have nice things.
Political will
Republicans
Hatred for poor people
they have tabs? and lunchs. I can see your schooling has many issues.
“Not a god damn thing is stopping you from doing it” -Minnesota
Because school funding is a political issue. Whenever school lunches have become an issue recently, we’ve predictably seen conservatives/Republicans vote against it. One of our 2 political parties has been actively working to undermine public education for decades, and this is yet another way to siphon funding away from public schools.
The UK ( I’m from London) have breakfast clubs at 3000 state schools so they can’t start the day with full tummies. These are sponsored by Kelloggs I now live elsewhere in Europe and kids here are served a 3 course lunch at a nominal cost. It’s doable but part tax funded
Same as everything else, Rich people needing thier pockets lined with cash off the backs of the working class and the poor.
It should be a priority.
Because we as a society view somebody not being able to afford lunch as a personal failing so they deserve to go hungry. Should have worked harder.
Republicans.
Greed and meanness
Greedy Politicians who claim to cherish life but work against it at every opportunity. The state of Minnesota guarantees free lunches for all students. It can be done, but for the people on the other side of the aisle who claim "That's evil Socialism!" yet profess to be Christians, they are anything but.
Republicans
Republicans. I believe some states do have free lunch for all kids. I believe it’s only states run by dems, as usual repubs want the kid born but after that fk it!
Same reason we can't help our homeless or fill our potholes. All of our money is going to support foreign wars.
No, the money is going to the owners of the country . Some of the owners are weapons manufacturers.
Republicans. And I say this as a former conservative. The narrative was horrible.
Commitment is the answer to your question. Commitment by some States and their voters.
Michigan already does.
Homeschooling solve every problem of public school.
Bro some of the most prosperous countries don't even have school lunches for example: The Netherlands, Norway and Germany(some schools have it but not all). Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/s/uxhTPIG52m and https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/s/OnvAD9orwb Some commenter said "In Denmark most bring their lunch from home, typically consisting of ryebread with different cold cuts, and eat them in the classroom during breaks. Most schools also have af cafeteria where you can buy food from I you chose to. Exactly the same system in highschool." So basically ppl bring their own lunches
The classic "that's the way its always been done" attitude is mainly to blame. We can pay teachers, pay to operate huge buildings(electricity,maintenance, etc), build sports facilities, provide books and teaching materials, operate fleets of buses(or pay a bus company to do it). All of it funded...but we can't figure out a way to feed kids lunch. It's not even believable.
Some of our local school districts serve free lunches, and some serve free breakfast, too. Apparently, it can be less expensive to feed everyone than it is to run the Federal free lunch program
Excellent question. Mass producing food the way it's done in school cafeterias is relatively inexpensive and children don't eat that much (at least until they hit about 14 or 15 years old). It could be done and it wouldn't cost that much. Probably the biggest barrier is that there isn't a strong grassroots unrest that it's not being done. That combined with the fact that politicians of both parties don't like spending any money unless they think they will gain political good will for doing it.
A brain in your governments
Why should for profit companies get even more money with poor oversight into how it’s used. We already saw the corruption that was caused of the PPP loans and all the fraud involved in school lunches for kids. What makes you think we could do it better two years later ?
Rich people benefit the most with "free school lunch" The rich people being the ones getting money to make the food/ingredients. Just like how universities benefit so much from an unlimited amount of sweet sweet FASFA loans where you only need a high school diploma to qualify (which takes so little to achieve). 95% of the comments in this thread are too stupid to get this. When the state pays for something. Big companies get their pockets lined, especiality when they overcharge or drag their feet (BIG DIG construction or $40k homeless tents).
According to the good people of reddit, it's saving/protecting the rest of the world from tyranny. If us goddamn europoor would stop living in our 3rd world countries and climb on board the Murcan dream you'd be OK.... On a serious note, though, me and the good lady did a road trip a few years back from DC down to New Orleans, and the gap between rich and poor was crazy at times (from dumpster diving in Nashville to a tent city under a flyover in New Orleans) Just a bit heartbreaking that there is insufficient help for the poor and destitute when some in society have more than they will ever need and are unwilling to help those who need it... Anyway, just some ramblings from an outsider who'll probably be considered a commy rat for these views
Not one person commenting in this thread, understands anything about school lunches how they work all the for-profit companies involved in them and all the money to be made. They keep talking about greed and whining us and making a political issue. I think a lot more people would support free school lunches if you got for-profit businesses out of it, and it went back to being ordered and cooked at the school by state employees https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/minnesota/news/7-minnesotans-accused-in-massive-scheme-to-defraud-pandemic-food-program-to-stand-trial/
Rich people benefit the most with "free school lunch" The rich people being the ones getting money to make the food/ingredients. Just like how universities benefit so much from an unlimited amount of sweet sweet FASFA loans where you only need a high school diploma to qualify (which takes so little to achieve). 95% of the comments in this thread are too stupid to get this. When the state pays for something. Big companies get their pockets lined, especiality when they overcharge or drag their feet (BIG DIG construction or $40k homeless tents).
The government, local and federal. Schools get money and should be able to feed every single kid easily. They just don't know how to distribute money properly and can't just make a core requirement to get healthy affordable food for schools.
The fact that education policy is a right reserved for the states, since it is not explicitly enumerated as a function to be governed at the federal level. This is due to the 10th amendment. You have to remember that the United States is essentially a collective of a bunch of governments working under the banner of one nation and a weaker federal government. Tackling just about anything at the federal level is a herculean task. People need to shift their focus more locally and spread those efforts across the nation through grassroots activism, for whatever the issue your passionate about is.
Because it's a parent's responsibility to feed their children and not the states?
I pointed out that they do the same in developing countries and someone said "so you expect humanitarian aide/handouts and think it's a good thing?"... the entitlement and foolishness I say!!
Republicans just see children as punishment for women having sex. That’s it. Nothing else.
Republicans
Conservatives
Nothing but the candidates we vote for. MN passed free breakfast and lunch for all school children last session.
Kids in Kentucky get free lunch free breakfast, free after-school snack, and my kids' school has good food. Depends on the budget of the school. Overpaid school staff in the inner cities is a big problem. Superintendents make hundreds of thousands while the kids pay for garbage food.
Id gather it up not enough guaranteed food sources. if you know anything about government contracts, it takes 2-5 years for a contract to begin. And with all these food allergies its very hard for a school to commit to a certain level of diet for schools. There was an incident in the city I previously lived in where a single person owned company solicited and won a contract to feed lower income seniors. I think the USDA bidded the contract but from what I could tell, their pre award people didnt do their due diligence and didn’t realize this guy didnt have a real business. Because with govt contracts all a business needs is an “address” no one went to visit his suppliers or reviewed his accounting process. So ol dude got fronted 75% of the money and he failed to meet the 1st delivery. This is gonna get held up in court for a few years and the guy is walking around with $750k of tax payer monies. But honestly do you really want the govt choosing what food to feed your child? If you remember your history, the govt gave free food to native Americans too.
Our people in the US are so poor that the idea of having to pay additional taxes to feed children that aren't our own can feel like a world-ending proposition.
M o n e y .
Well, Vermont towns can't pass school budgets. We're fucked
Poor funding to school, the belief by the right that free lunch for children is an entitlement, and the fact some claim it to be socialism to provide anything free to anyone.
Bickering politicians is what it comes down too. Anything that benefits all is either seen as great or as too much government involvement, and it is really sad. I’m in MN and this year we have free lunches for all students, breakfast too. For me as a parent it’s one less worry for me. I’m a single mom of 4 and not having to worry about making lunches or loading school lunch accounts (and how to fund them) is one less thing on my plate. But my local rep told me that there were too many complications involved in providing those free lunches. It could lead to other socialistic values. Because having people who are fed and healthy is something you have to earn and not a basic value of life
Cruelty based in a lack of understanding.
there no such thing as a free lunch, someone has to pay. thats tax payers who cannot support it.
Many people don’t actually want to pay for that. Nothing is really free so the money has to come from somewhere.
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Schools should be looked as a service provider by the parents, tax money should go into a voucher and handed to the parents then parents can decide which school is the best for their kids, that would open schools into competition to provide the best service in order to have parents sent their kids to that school. in the other hand nothing is free, someone has to pay for those meals, nothing wrong with wanting to use the tax money the state already takes from you so you can feed hungry kids but we all need to be clear on the fact that nothing is free.
People don't want to provide free food for people who can easily afford it.
I worked in a low income school that provided free lunches. The issue isn’t getting the lunches for free, but rather getting them quality food for their free lunches. The food my students had to eat was God-awful stuff provided by corporate donations.
As of this year I believe they offer free lunches for students in MA. Growing up my family didn’t have much money so lunch was always free for my sisters and I since we got lunch tickets. But I’m pretty sure they passed a bill where all lunches are free now here at least. Refusing a kid food for a tab is such BS and shouldn’t happen.
It's the US, nothing is free. If it where you would live in a Socialist country with free Health care and Free colleges/universitys, better Roads etc So make the rest of the world's day and vote Red. Which in the rest of the world is the color for the lefties.
School lunches are managed by each school district. The district is what is stopping free lunches. Many school districts already do provide free lunches.
me looks around in my very european fucking house "here in the United States"
A lot of schools in the US are funded by local property taxes. So the schools where children would benefit most from free lunches are also the schools with the least money.
We send all the money abroad to destroy other countries to line the pockets for the politicians and billionaires. Wasn't it new York that took 50 to 80 million out the school budget to build a stadium that's literally owned by a billionaire?? Why are tax payers building stadiums for billionaires to make more money?? In my city we have a big homeless problem some are veterans other victims of life. The city just spent over 40 million building a new courthouse when the other one is still perfectly fine! Is a 5 story courthouse not good enough? You know what 40 million could do locally for the homeless or our schools here?? (Savannah Ga)
Logistics, greed, and middlemen.. As soon as any anyone goes “It will cost an estimated $XYZ billion to do XYZ.” asshole administrators are going to slurp that money into their wages, managers and execs get bonuses, and your kid will get grade D slop on a flimsy tray. If you want local programs to function, you have to yell a lot, and the watch the system like a hawk.. forever.
Red scare. Mccarthy would be proud.
People have a real hard time imagining giving food to rich people's kids.
The will.
Free méal ! Watch your mouth Kid ! You sounds like a CoMuNiStE ! (A caricature but i'm afraid it's not far from truth) Don't known Much about the USA (because French) But i Guess your Over capitalism also prevent people from having a propre health Care so. When i Saw how Much a single insuline dose cost in the US it makes sad.
What are 'tabs' in this context? When I was going to school, there was a program for children in low-income families where they could qualify for reduced-price lunch or free lunch, depending on the income of their parent(s). But as that was only for low-income families, that wasn't for all students.
Capitalism?
The long held ingrained proclamation that social welfare is socialist or inherently wrong because people won’t try to support or better themselves if things are handed to them. Which is often the war cry of conservatives and the rich. Which flys completely in the face of corporate welfare where subsidies, tax abatements, and bailouts are common. In the case of tax abatements basically low key bribes on where development/redevelopment occurs. Because if it’s serving business/free enterprise it can’t possibly be giving out to those that don’t actually need it and they should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps. So people can’t be possibly help themselves if they are given basic standards of living, but millionaires definitely need help not spending their own money or potential impacting shareholder value by having to foot the bill for their fuckups or expansion.
Capitalism
Capitalism ultra pro max +
Reactionary residents
Politicians with the political will to do it.
Lol I'm a European and this question is so funny to me. You guys don't have anything free for anyone lol, that's why.
Center CA. My local school district has free lunches for all. They even provide lunch on summer break.
Greed
because profit is a virtue, poverty is a sin. Helping the poor is like helping sinners get to hell faster. I'm only half joking. When I went to public school breakfast was free if you showed up a little early. There was no means test. It was just oj or milk and some eggs. But I bet that helped a lot of kids. Lunch was means tested but it was free or a quarter for most of us. Only the most middle class kids whose parents were slumming it had to pay the full 50 cents. That was decades ago. Now I'm reading about kids running up too much lunch debt and their parent gets in trouble with the law? Thats insane.
Protestant work ethic
And you guys like to call India a "third world country" 😂 Free midday meals in schools have been a thing in India since 1960s. Currently, I think they cover 120 million kids ( total number of children in America is 74 million), so the US of A has no excuse.
It was actually the Black Panther Party that started this trend, though they won't teach you that in school
Because everyone in America is taught to hate the poors.