Provide free school meals for all N.Y. students
Nothing is more fundamental than making sure kids have enough food to eat. Very few people contest that. Yet children are going hungry every day in New York.
At the end of last year, 726,000 students at nearly 2,000 schools across the state lost access to meals they depend on when federal funding for universal school meals expired. And Congress was unable to muster a deal to extend it.
Before that cutoff, the federal government had been funding free meals for all public school students due to the pandemic. It worked. It was proof that we could truly address child hunger on a 50state scale with government intervention. Now states must step up and carry on these programs themselves.
Colorado was the latest state to adopt permanent universal school meals, joining California, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Nevada. Pennsylvania provides breakfast free for all students. New York City made school lunch free for all of its 1.1 million students beginning in 2017. Other cities, like Rochester, Albany, and Yonkers, also provide universal free school meals.
But 30 percent of all public school students in New York
To include free meals for all in next year’s state budget would cost just $275 per student.
state don’t have the same access. The state needs to fund free school meals for all students in next year’s budget.
Last year, our state budget was $220 billion. To include free meals for all in next year’s budget would cost $275 per student. That’s just 0.1 percent of our budget. Also, by enabling schools to purchase larger quantities, offering healthy meals for all lowers per-student lunch prices and eliminat
es millions in unpaid school meal debt each year. For every dollar invested in providing healthy meals for students, New York would get at least two dollars back in health, economic, equity, and environmental benefits.
For lawmakers, supporting school meals ahead of a different spending priority, or ahead of avoiding a spending cut, may be right morally, but it usually isn’t useful politically. The people benefiting most from the meals — kids — don’t vote. And like most people, most of these kids’ parents don’t vote in all-important state primaries either.
But Gov. Kathy Hochul and lawmakers in Albany need to know that almost 90 percent of New Yorkers support free school meals for all. You rarely see policies this popular, and the widespread popularity makes sense: Ensuring students are well fed is proven to boost test scores, improve behavioral health, and reduce racial health disparities and academic achievement gaps.
And elected officials should keep this in mind: If you include funding for free school meals for all students in next year’s New York state budget, you fed hungry kids. No one can take that away from you.