I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by ItsBob » Mon, May 05, 2025, 2:07 PM UTC

In The Peoples Republic of Scotland, all primary kids get free lunches now, I think (Primary is aged 4/5 to 11/12).

When it was introduced, my son was in P1 or 2. We spoke to the head and asked if we could pay for our son's lunch as we didn't need the freebie. She said there was no way to pay for it: it was free whether you wanted it or not.

Crazy.

I'm a rampant capitalist, every man for himself and all that but there is something about denying kids the fundamentals, like shelter, food etc. that rubs me up the wrong way. There should never be a situation where they are denied proper lunches. Never.

School lunch debt is an adult-designed problem that we shouldn't be passing onto kids.

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

#62

Post by icegreentea2 » Mon, May 05, 2025, 2:07 PM UTC

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?

School lunch programs across the world get setup and perpetuated for a variety of reasons. They also have a variety of funding models.

For the US specifically, major federal programs began during the Great Depression as a two for one combo. It solved the direct problem of... people being poor and their kids not having food/lunch, and it also provided a reasonable supply sink for the government to buy out supply from farmers to help keep things going.

Anyhow, since then for a variety of reasons, subsidized/free lunches have stuck around. Primarily because the underlying problem (food insecurity) has not been adequately solved. School lunches also tends to be amongst the more politically palatable/defensible forms of welfare in the United States, since its very structure and beneficiaries make it harder to criticize.

So while expansion of SNAP or other programs that might help tackle general food insecurity might run into headwinds, most of those arguments tend to falter when it comes to feeding children directly at school. For example, it's hard to argue that getting free lunches at school would encourage "abuse and malaise" amongst students. Similarly, since the composition of lunches tend to be under control of the supplying organization, there's reduced concern of people spending their assistance on "luxuries".

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

#63

Post by mproud » Mon, May 05, 2025, 2:07 PM UTC

I love living in Minnesota.

Walz passed the Free Meals for School Kids Program[^1] at my elementary school, no less! about two years ago.

I’m happy that other states are finally realizing, gee, this is such a straightforward issue we could actually solve.

[^1] https://education.mn.gov/MDE/dse/FNS/SNP/free/

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

#64

Post by grimcompanion » Mon, May 05, 2025, 2:08 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #37

DisruptiveDave wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence"

I'm pretty sure this is malice. They know, they don't do anything.

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.

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

#65

Post by searine » Mon, May 05, 2025, 2:09 PM UTC

Childhood nutrition and Lead exposure are the two highest impact issues that can be easily solved to improve life-time outcomes, and yet we don't fix it.

It is mind boggling that we leave kids starving in america, and we are going to pay for it for decades.

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

#66

Post by m-hodges » Mon, May 05, 2025, 2:10 PM UTC

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. ;)

I just popped over to Honda's website and clicked through on a new CR-V. I went with the EX trim which is the 2nd cheapest of six available trims. After clicking next on every screen without adding any upgrades, it offered me $33,745 MSRP with 36-month financing at 2.49% APR, which came to $1,035/month.

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

#67

Post by anon84873628 » Mon, May 05, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

infecto wrote: post #12

Nit: could not stand the writing style. It took 3-4x more words than it should have. On the topic I agree and believe strongly that all kids should receive free food at school. It amazes me people will fight to prevent when to me the costs are small but the benefit can be huge for the next generation.

Because that's what makes it a "story" people will remember, rather than just a few more sad statistics about our society that people will see and then forget.

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

#68

Post by Kapura » Mon, May 05, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

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?

I feel like there's the administrative overhead, but also every child having food when they are learning is sure to be a profound positive externality. The only outcome of having kids to go to school hungry or receive substandard education is keeping the poorer classes of society "in their place." This is very gross.

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

#69

Post by giancarlostoro » Mon, May 05, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #57

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...

Interesting, I think so far I've only had used cars, but even so my wife has a newer car than I do, bought it brand new, and she's paying below that threshold so it surprised me to hear that amount.

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

#70

Post by jacknews » Mon, May 05, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

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…

"It's astonishing this is a thing."

Indeed, any decent modern society should provide free quality education, and that should include free quality meals. Especially the richest country in the world.