Debt, Inflation and Cold Cheese Sandwiches

There are 14 million children living in hunger in the U.S. In 2023, 27% of Black children lived in food-insecure households, and over 9 million Black people could not access enough food to lead a healthy life, according to Feeding America. Sadly, the bigger these numbers are, the more prone we are to ignoring the problem. 

But we can’t let these statistics become acceptable. 

For the child who doesn’t qualify for the free lunch program and whose parents can’t afford food on a regular basis, this isn’t a numbers game. Their hunger isn’t a passing statistic. It is a reality they face every day. Food insecurity impacts every aspect of their lives, including their physical, emotional and mental health.

For many children across the U.S., school is their most reliable source of food. School meals provide nutrition for students who don’t have food available on a regular basis at home. But school meals can also be a source of stress, embarrassment and stigma.

In many schools across the country, a student who cannot pay for lunch might still get to eat. But rather than being served a hot lunch, the school cafeteria may give them a cold cheese sandwich. Older students are often outright denied food if they can’t afford to pay, and if they have school lunch debt, they may be banned from participating in school activities until their debt is paid. In some instances, schools have used unpaid lunch debt to block teens from attending their graduation ceremonies or in more extreme cases, threaten parents with sending their children to foster care.

For children who can eat at school with no issue, there is still a stigma attached to participating in school lunch programs. Free-lunch kids know they are free-lunch kids, and they are often treated differently by their peers, teachers and school staff. To avoid emotional distress, some students skip lunch entirely.

If you’ve never found yourself in this situation, you might ask: Why can’t these students just bring their own lunch?

Families who are told they make too much money to qualify for the free lunch program often cannot afford to purchase enough food for themselves — especially as food prices far outpace general inflation. Latinx families are hit particularly hard by these dynamics. As of 2023, 14.4% of Latinx families live in poverty — well above the nation’s overall poverty rate of 11.1%.

To qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, a student must be found eligible based on their family’s income, a determination made by federal income poverty guidelines. Vulnerable student populations, including migrant children and unhoused children, are automatically eligible for free school meals, but their families often cannot afford the food they need daily. Undocumented families do not qualify for any federal food assistance programs. 

We tend to equate poverty and hunger with physical health, rather than emotional and mental health. But there is a more significant toll on children who are denied even a cheese sandwich at school or are otherwise made to go hungry if they don’t have money to pay for lunch. Research shows that for children who are handed nothing more than a cheese sandwich or are sent away from the cafeteria hungry, the stigma they experience can lead them to experience mental health issues, including chronic stress, anxiety and depression. 

The good news is that multiple states are moving toward alleviating students’ hunger and stress. California, Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont now have permanent policies to provide meals to all children, regardless of income. In recent years, Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan and New Mexico implemented “Healthy School Meals for All” policies that provide students a free breakfast and lunch, regardless of household income. Nevada used relief funds from the pandemic to extend the state’s free lunch program through the current school year. It’s time for the country to adopt similar policies for all school children, regardless of income and age. 

Not only is it the right thing to do, but plenty of evidence shows the wide-ranging benefits of feeding our nation’s students — from improved mental health and acuity to increased attention spans and improvements in behavior and academic achievement. Our nation’s children deserve to be well-fed.  

There is broad public and bipartisan support for these school lunch programs. Ultimately, we have to decide whether we want to fight for a national program that ensures access to breakfast and lunch for all students or whether we want to be a nation willing to deny low-income children even the possibility of a cold cheese sandwich.