Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

huffpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 918 posts

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#101

Post by explodes »

relaxing wrote: post #89
grimcompanion wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's way too simple to categorize behavior like this into good/evil. It's a worthwhile thought experiment (and habit) to assume that everyone is trying to do the right thing, and try to understand how they might come to a different viewpoint than you.

OK, so you endorse a policy which not only creates human suffering now but harms society and creates more human suffering in the future. The cost of fixing it is minuscule and outweighed by the future benefits. What are the good faith arguments in favor of this? - ignorance - lack of critical reasoning skills - religion - sadism - ?

How did they give you the impression they were endorsing this?

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#102

Post by bombcar »

glitchc wrote: post #32
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #5

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…

Gradients would impose a significant burden on the bureaucracy. It's already complicated enough to figure out where a person's unique circumstances place them on various thresholds. Add gradients and the complexity grows exponentially. The net result would be a 100x increase in the number of public servants.

Gradients can impose a burden, but they can also be simple enough to just "run with" - and many of them that are already gradient-based are.

They just go off of last year's 1040, with overrides for "now a thing happened" - like job loss this year when you made a good amount last year.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#103

Post by mjevans »

internetter wrote: post #34
M3L0NM4N wrote: post #4

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?

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 t…

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.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#104

Post by dahart »

internetter wrote: post #34
M3L0NM4N wrote: post #4

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?

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 t…

Schools seem amazing at spending on lunches, when they can feed people for less than $5 a meal. I can’t eat for that amount, even when cooking at home these days. I’m not seeing clearly what your transit agency’s payment system upgrade has to do with school lunches or why that somehow supports the idea that they’re not spending prudently.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#105

Post by bombcar »

internetter wrote: post #34
M3L0NM4N wrote: post #4

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?

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 t…

One of the "don't say the quiet part out loud" with transit fares (which would NOT apply to school lunches) is that transit fares are a convenient way to remove unwanted transit enjoyers.

It is somewhat hard to define "being disruptive on the subway" but it's easy to define "doesn't have a ticket".

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#106

Post by bombcar »

rpcope1 wrote: post #82

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.

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 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.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#107

Post by thomascgalvin »

vlovich123 wrote: post #16
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #5

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…

[flagged]

While this is generally true of a certain American political party, you see hard cutoff lines even in states like Massachusetts, where the majority of voters and politicians seem to be actively trying to make things better for people.

The real answer is that gradients are hard, and clear lines are easy. A shocking number of Americans don't understand how our income tax brackets work; they believe that if you cross the line into a higher income bracket, your entire income is taxed at that new, higher rate, and you end up losing money overall.

Massachusetts, which has the highest percentage of college educated citizens in the entire country, also shot down ranked choice voting last year, because the math was too hard.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#108

Post by bombcar »

dataflow wrote: post #15

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 dec…

When you're a student you get a card or pin or something to identify you to the school cafeteria.

You have a balance it charges against. In theory, when it hits zero, no more food for you.

But that's impractical because kids are bad about just about everything, and so denying food because they forgot to remind their parents to recharge the thing is harsh. So the system lets them go into "debt" and still get a lunch.

And it doesn't really stop, but the school will often put up a bit of a fight over final grades or diploma to try to get the debt paid off, but often it just gets written off.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#109

Post by triceratops »

senectus1 wrote: post #29

(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?

If the government forces you to be someplace, under threat of imprisonment for your parents, then they'd better at least feed you.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#110

Post by dataflow »

bombcar wrote: post #108
dataflow wrote: post #15

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 dec…

When you're a student you get a card or pin or something to identify you to the school cafeteria. You have a balance it charges against. In theory, when it hits zero, no more food for you. But that's impractical because kids are bad about just about everything, and so denying food because they forgot to remind their parents to recharge the thing is harsh. So the system lets them go into "debt" and still get a lunch.…

Thank you! This clarifies a ton.
Post reply on HN