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I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

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

#51

Post by GarnetFloride »

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…

Haven't you met people who refused a raise because they were scared of moving to a new tax bracket? Same thing only this is where it actually happens.

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

#52

Post by criddell »

mbfg wrote: post #22
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm thankful to live in Massachusetts where all kids can get lunch for free What's the cost of living in Massachusetts again?

the cool thing about cost of living is taxes tend to track cost of living, so the ability for government to pay for school lunches is likely similar anywhere.

In Texas, schools are primarily funded through property taxes. That means wealthy neighborhoods have well funded schools that can easily afford free lunches, poor neighborhoods do not.

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

#53

Post by lynndotpy »

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.

I don't think you should be getting downvoted, you are right. I don't think it's "100x more", but more complicated rules require more resources dedicated to their management.

It's one of the reasons people push for UBI. Welfare programs waste a lot of money trying to make sure the "right" people are getting it; UBI just gets rid of the waste.

The solution is simply: Make school lunch free for every student.

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

#54

Post by boxed »

andreicap wrote: post #25

My poor country (Moldova) just implemented free lunches for kids in primary and middle schools. What is the reason US doesn’t have this already at federal level?

Same reason they have expensive university, extremely expensive healthcare, for profit prisons, etc, I guess. There's a dog-eat-dog mentality over there which is quite puzzling to us Europeans.

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

#55

Post by _dark_matter_ »

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.

100x? I think this deserves a bit of a deeper insight. The inputs are the same, which means the verification steps are also exactly the same. The only change might be volume, but I highly doubt it would be 100x.

Outputs would change from bool to float between 0-1. That much is relatively easy given a calculator.

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

#56

Post by maxlybbert »

msravi wrote: post #6

Do different kids get different meals in US schools? I mean for non-medical or dietary purposes? The article doesn't seem to be very clear on that... Is it that when the school's debt gets to a certain point, all kids' meals are replaced by "alternative meals"? Or do some kids' meals only get switched? If so what is the deciding criterion?

I believe the current rules ( https://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp ) require the schools to make some effort to avoid certain allergens.

When my children were in school, their school said that anybody who didn’t have lunch would be given a “sun butter” sandwich and food from the cafeteria. I wasn’t familiar with sun butter; it’s peanut butter made from sunflower seeds, because people allergic to peanuts may not be allergic to sunflower seeds.

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

#57

Post by criddell »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #46

> $835. > ... > It was less than some monthly car payments. I'm not sure what kind of car, but that's way above any car payment I've ever had to pay. ;)

According to this site [1], the average car payment is $724.

[1]: https://www.lendingtree.com/auto/debt-statistics/#:~:text=Th...

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

#58

Post by tarxvf »

andreicap wrote: post #25

My poor country (Moldova) just implemented free lunches for kids in primary and middle schools. What is the reason US doesn’t have this already at federal level?

Because the US is really 50 small countries in a trenchcoat that aren't all on the same page of the script.

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

#59

Post by tecirpinslime »

candiddevmike wrote: post #7
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…

During COVID, school lunch was free, and most school served free bag lunches over the summer too. That ended in June 2022. Congress could've kept it going for a pittance, but alas...

My significant other work at a school during Covid where they were giving free breakfasts and lunches. The waste I witnessed from it all was atrocious, due to the fluctuations from day-to-day how many students would come in. The staff always wanted to err on the side of caution, because they didn’t want any kids to miss out. We’re talking sometimes over 200 lunches that were discarded in a day. Some things could be reused, but a lot was thrown away. It was against the rules to do anything but either give them to a student, or throw them away.

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

#60

Post by tantalor »

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?

Pittsburgh Public Schools started doing this (free breakfast & lunch) in 2014: https://www.pghschools.org/departments/food-services/free-me...

This program replaces free & reduced-price lunch for qualifying kids, with "free for everybody".

They directly cite reasons like increased participation and better service (faster lines). It also cuts down on administrative overhead (don't need to separately qualify each kid). Another benefit is kids are not shamed for getting free lunch, since everybody gets a free lunch.

It is a USDA program: https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/cep

I'm genuinely worried the current administration will decide it is a waste of money, or woke, or some other BS.

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