Free lunch for every kid is now law in Minnesota, New Mexico, Colorado, Vermont, Michigan, and Massachusetts. It polls at about 99% and should be backed by any decent American. - ThreadSky

lolgop.bsky.social • 523 days ago

Free lunch for every kid is now law in Minnesota, New Mexico, Colorado, Vermont, Michigan, and Massachusetts. It polls at about 99% and should be backed by any decent American.

Reposted from Kelly Weill

School lunch debt is skyrocketing with the expiration of Covid-era subsidies. With it come humiliating debt-collection tactics served on children.

That + more in this week's MomLeft (a new newsletter for moms on the left): open.substack.com/pub/momleft/...

Comments

mcornell.dev•523 days ago

The benefit this provides for people who can afford school lunches is thru the roof.

No adding money to some account via credit card or whatever.

It polls well because it’s super convenient. If they screw around and mess up that part…

maiainmi.bsky.social•522 days ago

With such high approval, it seems to be polling well even with people who have no children in school. Maybe the convenience isn't a factor. Maybe people just approve of children not going hungry.

mcornell.dev•522 days ago

Sometimes people need to experience the benefit before they accept the cost.

5 years ago this doesn’t poll as high.

maiainmi.bsky.social•522 days ago

This is true.

textilita.bsky.social•330 days ago

I have no children and am vehemently pro free breakfast and lunch for all kids. This is exactly how I want my tax dollars spent.

ktetch.bsky.social•523 days ago

Even my heavily-trump county in central GA has it, and has for many years.
In the summer they do breakfast+lunch so families with kids can get a meal there. So not even a blink when I'd eat there while chaperoning the Marching band (which my kids were in, I'm not a weirdo hanging around the school!)

msmeredith.bsky.social•523 days ago

Hell yes Mass! Say what you will about Boston, but our state rocks!

regnad.bsky.social•522 days ago

I imagine New Hampshire will be the last state with free school lunch.

lolgop.bsky.social•522 days ago

I think of others, mostly with more Black people.

cjlemire.com•522 days ago

Massachusetts has enacted free school lunch in perpetuity.

webrant.bsky.social•523 days ago

Also California, as last year it began providing free school lunches to all K-12 students, regardless of family income.

waywardwillow.bsky.social•523 days ago

breakfast too!

malzliebchen.bsky.social•523 days ago

What the hell is the rest of my state doing? Breakfast and Lunch at every Chicago school is free, and some schools even do it during the summer and the various breaks.

thejackalope231.bsky.social•474 days ago

Illinois actually passed a bill for universal breakfast and lunch just this year, so looks like the answer is "the right thing"!

justbreathe.bsky.social•523 days ago

I thought we did this in Pennsylvania as well, recently.

weidleman.com•523 days ago

as someone who ran social media for a No Kid Hungry-adjacent campaign, you’d be surprised at the vitriol for free school lunches.

buzzfoster.bsky.social•523 days ago

Something like 85% of kids in New Mexico already qualified for free breakfast and lunch. It was more cost-effective to just make it all free and eliminate the cost of administering the remaining 15%. It's also 100% the right thing to do.

terez.bsky.social•523 days ago

gonna assume that is an exaggeration. i remember how hard it was when i was a kid to get my dad to apply for free lunch for us. he complained every time we asked for lunch money but he told us he wouldn’t take free lunch on principle. it took years to get him to apply.

007bistromath.bsky.social•330 days ago

Every decent American. If your principles put others at risk, they aren't decent.

terez.bsky.social•330 days ago

my comment was about the polling

007bistromath.bsky.social•330 days ago

ishfery.bsky.social•523 days ago

That's why providing free lunch without means testing is so important. Kids deserve to eat whether their parent filled out paperwork or not

terez.bsky.social•523 days ago

never said otherwise. just find it hard to believe it has anything like 99% support when people like my dad exist.

ishfery.bsky.social•522 days ago

Based on this source from before the pandemic (I assume it's higher now), it's 80%+ since they didn't include non English speakers in this survey. Congress people are voting against it even in blue states so 99 is a narrative exaggeration

lonelylupine.bsky.social•474 days ago

They're probably exaggerating, but I am willing to bet not by much. American support for universal background checks was high 80s last I checked; don't see why this would be much different.

professionalbum.bsky.social•523 days ago

same, but my father never applied. "That's for [literally every slur], not hard working Americans like me!"

That MFer worked a union job and had guaranteed raises every year. He just didn't give your kids lunch money, the skinflint racist.

tomscud.bsky.social•523 days ago

Illinois, too.

geekgrammy.com•523 days ago

I do NOT understand the people who think FEEDING KIDS so they can pay attention and learn things in school is bad.

Not to mention, just feeding kids IN GENERAL is a good thing.

bshirley.shirl.com•523 days ago

If these kids get well educated, they can take care of us in our old age. Either directly, or indirectly with their taxes.

bingobango.bsky.social•523 days ago

It's about hierarchy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs&t=1099s

kelliblue.bsky.social•523 days ago

Thank the Black Panther Party

professionalbum.bsky.social•523 days ago

Don't forget California! As a child going through the California public education system hungry, I will always cheer this decision on.

spotspotlights.bsky.social•523 days ago

This is actual PRO LIFE

bmcgreevy.bsky.social•523 days ago

And California - breakfast and lunch.

oweniverson.bsky.social•522 days ago

Free breakfasts are largely the result of the Black Panthers' breakfast program in the mid 60s.

They one-upped the US govt's lunch program and were blasted for it.

But then people were like "oh yeah, this is a good thing"

maiainmi.bsky.social•522 days ago

Michigan has free breakfast and lunch for all public school students, too.

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