The original goal of the school lunch and breakfast programs was to tackle hunger, but the main nutrition problem for children today is not inadequate calories but excessive consumption of unhealthy foods and obesity. Hence, subsidizing school food is an outdated use of federal dollars. Congress should repeal school food programs to reduce budget deficits and hand power back to the states. State and local governments should decide what sort of school food policies to adopt for their own residents.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) runs the nation’s school lunch and breakfast programs, which together with related school food programs will cost federal taxpayers an estimated $35 billion in 2025.¹ Thirty million children, which is about 58 percent of students in public schools, received school food benefits in 2024.²

Congress created the school food programs to help lower-income households, but the programs increasingly subsidize higher-income households. The share of school lunches provided free or at a reduced price increased from 15 percent in 1969 to 72 percent in 2024.³

The original goal of the school lunch and breakfast programs was to tackle hunger, but the main nutrition problem for children today is not inadequate calories but excessive consumption of unhealthy foods and obesity. The obesity rate for all children has risen from 5 percent in the 1970s to 21 percent in 2023, and the obesity rate for children from poor households is substantially higher than for other children.⁴

Subsidizing school food is an outdated use of federal dollars. With the government facing large budget deficits, the USDA’s school food aid should be phased out. The running of top-down school food programs is also out of step with the diverse and decentralized education approaches under state-led school choice reforms.

The nutrition and obesity problems experienced by many schoolchildren are complex. As such, those problems would be better handled by innovative state policies and families than by one-size-fits-all federal programs. Freed from federal control, the states could adopt more efficient policies customized to local needs.

Congress should repeal school food programs to reduce budget deficits and hand power back to the states. State and local governments should decide what sort of school food policies to adopt for their own residents.

In the early 20th century, local governments and private charities provided food to needy schoolchildren in many cities. The Congressional Research Service noted, “When the first federal aid for school lunches was provided in the 1930s, local school lunch programs were already operational in many cities and localities across the United States.”⁵ As the federal government expanded its school food programs in subsequent decades, it displaced these local and private efforts.

Federal involvement in school lunches stemmed from counterproductive schemes to aid farmers during the Great Depression. The government purchased meat, dairy, and grain products from farmers to distribute to the needy, including schoolchildren. A USDA history says the government aimed “to remove price-depressing surplus foods from the market” and thus tried to increase prices. Yet the same USDA history says that “many needy school children could not afford to pay for lunches.”⁶ The government’s policies conflicted: The effort to boost prices for farmers made food less affordable for children and families.

The modern school lunch program dates to the National School Lunch Act of 1946, which aimed to feed undernourished children and encourage consumption of US farm products. The program grew rapidly, from 4.5 million children in 1946 to 18.9 million by 1967.⁷ Congress created the school breakfast program as a pilot program in 1966 and made it permanent in 1975.

Concerns about rising budget deficits led Congress to cut school food programs by 25 percent in 1981 under President Ronald Reagan.⁸ School food outlays and the number of recipients fell in the early 1980s but then rebounded and started growing again later that decade.⁹ During the 1990s and 2000s, Congress eased eligibility and added new benefits, such as an after-school snack program in 1998.

In 2010, Congress passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA), which changed the nutrition rules for school food programs and expanded access to free lunches with the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), as discussed below.

The federal government funds school lunch and breakfast programs at about 90,000 public and nonprofit private schools across the nation. The lunch program benefits 30 million children and will cost an estimated $17.4 billion in 2025, while the breakfast program benefits 16 million children and will cost $6.1 billion.¹⁰

In addition, Congress funds an array of related school food programs:

• USDA Foods. The government buys meat, grains, fruits, and other foods from US producers and distributes them to food processors, which send finished items to schools for lunches and breakfasts.
• Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT). During the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress authorized EBT cards for groceries as an alternative to in-school meals, and it then passed a permanent EBT program in 2022. Children eligible for free or reduced-price meals receive $40 a month during the summer.
• Summer Food Service. This program provides meals to more than two million children each day in the summer at 40,000 sites nationwide.¹¹
• Fresh Fruits and Vegetables. This program provides fruits and vegetables to elementary schools.
• Child and Adult Care Food. This program provides food at 140,000 child and adult day-care centers and after-school programs.

Figure 1 shows that combined federal outlays for the school food programs increased from $16.4 billion in 2010 to an estimated $35 billion in 2025. This spending is titled “child nutrition” in the federal budget. The government also spends more than $100 billion a year on the food stamp program, which provides benefits to 42 million recipients, many of whom also benefit from the school food programs.

Federal funds cover 63 percent of the costs of the school lunch and breakfast programs. Students who partially or fully pay for their meals cover 31 percent of the costs, and state and local governments cover just 6 percent.¹²

Along with federal funding come top-down rules imposed on school food operations for nutrition, domestic purchasing, and other parameters. State governments issue their own rules for the programs, and local school food agencies operate the programs either in-house or with contractors. Multiple government layers create a lot of bureaucracy. For example, state agencies are required to submit 19 separate reports to the federal government each year on their school food activities.¹³

Another problem with federal involvement is conflicts of interest. Some analysts argue that the USDA’s control over both farm and food programs gives farm lobby groups undue influence over the content of school lunches.¹⁴ It would be better to fund and control school food systems locally—free from federal politics and tailored to local needs and tastes.

Any child at participating schools may receive meals from the school food programs. But eligibility for free or reduced-price meals is determined by a household’s income relative to the poverty level, which is a federal measure of income needed to cover essentials by type of household. Children from households with incomes below 130 percent of the poverty level receive free meals, and those between 130 and 185 percent of the poverty level receive reduced-price meals. Households above 185 percent pay “full price,” but that price is also subsidized to an extent.

The share of school lunches provided free or at reduced price increased from 15 percent in 1969 to 72 percent by 2024.¹⁵ Many schoolchildren bring their lunches from home, but as a share of all students in public schools, 43 percent today receive free or reduced-price lunches.¹⁶ That percentage is much higher than the 14 percent official poverty rate for households with children, indicating that the lunch program has expanded beyond just serving the poor. And note that the official poverty rate is overstated, according to research by statistician John Early.¹⁷

Rule changes over time have made it easier to claim free and reduced-price meals. Traditionally, students applied for benefits with an application form, but today many students are “directly certified,” meaning that school officials automatically sign them up if their household participates in other welfare programs.

Also, the 2010 HHFKA law encouraged the adoption of universal free school lunches with the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). The provision allows for free meals for all students in schools considered disadvantaged. Specifically, if a school or group of schools has 40 percent or more students eligible for free meals, then all students in those schools receive free meals automatically. Administrators use direct certification to measure the 40 percent threshold.

The share of all schools opting for CEP has been rising, hitting 43 percent in 2023.¹⁸ That share will likely rise further because the Biden administration cut the CEP threshold from 40 percent to 25 percent by executive action. The CEP process has opened the door to millions of children from middle- and higher-income households receiving free meals at taxpayer expense.

State governments pay for a portion of the additional free meals, but the federal funding formula makes it lucrative for schools to opt for CEP.¹⁹ On top of the CEP process, nine states have decided to provide free school lunches to all students in all schools.²⁰ Expanding programs to cover higher-income households imposes new costs on governments that already face fiscal challenges.

The Biden administration and Democratic leaders in Congress claim that the expansion of free school meals will reduce hunger.²¹ But that does not make sense; as noted, 43 percent of children in public schools already receive free and reduced-price meals, and the other 57 percent of children are from middle- and higher-income families, who can afford to feed their own children.

Another claim in support of schoolwide or universal free meals is that they will reduce administrative burdens for meal payments. That is true, but that cost is more than offset by the additional costs of the free meals plus the costs of expanding school cafeteria facilities to serve more students.

A final claim in support of schoolwide free meals is that they reduce stigma if all children are in the same situation.²² But it seems unlikely that children feel like outcasts when 4 in 10 are already in the same boat. Also, schools can implement systems where parents pay for meals without their children’s payment status identified in school cafeteria queues.

The drive for universal free school meals seems to be animated by left-leaning political views similar to support for other universal programs such as Social Security. The idea is to replace family resources with dependence on government and hook everyone, not just those truly in need, on handouts. Also, making school meals and other programs universal may be good politics, as it broadens public support for the spending.

However, universal programs are financially costly at a time when federal and state governments already face large fiscal challenges with growing health and retirement programs. Another consideration is that the expansion of government programs displaces the institutions of a free society. With school food programs, connections between parents and children get lost. When parents make school lunches, they can choose nutritious items their children prefer and receive direct feedback on their child’s eating habits. At the same time, children gain agency by working with their parents on food choices. By contrast, when children get free lunches from school, nutritious items often end up in the trash, as discussed below.

The school breakfast and lunch programs were aimed at reducing hunger among children from low-income households. Congress enacted the school lunch program partly in response to the US military finding that many recruits suffered from undernourishment.²³ President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the school breakfast program, saying that it would aid poor children arriving at school hungry.²⁴

As American incomes have risen over the decades, social conditions have vastly improved. Today, the main food-related problem for children from lower-income households is not hunger but excessive weight and the large consumption of unhealthy foods. Figure 2 shows that the share of US children who are obese rose from 5 percent in the 1970s to 21 percent in 2023. The problem is worse for poor children: 26 percent of children are obese in households under 135 percent of the poverty level, compared to just 12 percent for children over 350 percent of the poverty level.²⁵

Within the public schools, USDA data for 2015 show that 21.8 percent of students in the lunch program were obese, compared to 13.4 percent not in the program.²⁶ Are the school food programs contributing to rising obesity?

A 2009 study by Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach found that “children who consume school lunches are more likely to be obese than those who brown bag their lunches even though they enter kindergarten with the same obesity rates.”²⁷ A 2010 study by Ji Li and Neal Hooker found that the lunch and breakfast programs have “a statistically significant positive association with BMI [body mass index].”²⁸

A 2010 study by Daniel Millimet and coauthors found that “the School Breakfast Program is a valuable tool in the current battle against childhood obesity, whereas the National School Lunch Program exacerbates the current epidemic.”²⁹ A 2023 study by Luis Chavez and coauthors found that participation in the school lunch program was “positively associated” with body mass index.³⁰

Other studies come to different conclusions. A 2015 study by consultants to the USDA did not find substantial obesity differences between school lunch participants and nonparticipants.³¹ And a 2024 study by Therese Bonomo and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach found that “improvements in the nutritional content of school lunches have been largely successful in reversing the previously negative relationship between school lunches and childhood obesity.”³²

A 2015 Congressional Budget Office study concluded that “research on how school meal programs affect health and obesity also returns a diverse set of results” and that the effects “on children’s nutritional intake, health outcomes, and educational achievement are unclear. Researchers studying that question have often reached conflicting or inconclusive results.”³³

Minimum calorie requirements in place prior to the 2010 HHFKA law backfired with respect to nutrition. In his book on school meals, Marcus Weaver-Hightower noted, “Because these minimums were difficult to meet without running afoul of fat content restrictions, more sugar and bread was added to menus to meet requirements.”³⁴

Researchers agree that the HHFKA improved the nutritional quality of school food. The law increased vegetable, fruit, and whole grain requirements and limited sodium. It also imposed nutrition rules on à la carte purchases and vending machines.

However, obesity has continued to soar since the passage of the law. Figure 2 shows that the share of US children who are obese rose from 16.9 percent in 2011–2012 to 21.1 percent by 2021–2023.³⁵ One problem is sugar: In 2022, the USDA found that 69 percent of food program lunches and 92 percent of breakfasts had more than the recommended 10 percent of calories from added sugars.³⁶

Also, just because laws can require that students be served nutritious foods does not mean students will eat them. Plate waste is a major problem in the school food programs. The USDA found that students throw out 31 percent of vegetables, 29 percent of milk, and 26 percent of fruits.³⁷ A 2017 review of dozens of studies found that “since the 1970s, most studies reported more than 30% food waste” in the school lunch program.³⁸ As schools adopt universal free school lunches, plate waste may increase because children and parents may view free food as more disposable.³⁹

Students can throw out healthy foods from their trays and substitute less healthy items available à la carte or from vending machines. Some common à la carte items are high in sugar, including breakfast cereals, canned fruit, pancakes, and low-fat cookies and ice cream.⁴⁰ Students may also receive less-than-healthy snacks in after-school programs and childcare centers.

The large number of participants in lunch programs may exacerbate the plate waste problem.⁴¹ If most students rely on the cafeteria, lunch times must be staggered and can start at 10:00 a.m. or even earlier.⁴² Kids in the early time slots may not be hungry yet and end up throwing out nutritious food, then eating snack food later in the day. Cafeteria line congestion likely gets worse when schools move to universal free meals. This is one reason schools should encourage children to bring lunches from home.

The progressive ideal of comprehensive meal programs for all students conflicts with trends in K–12 education in other ways. First, rising numbers of children in US schools are from cultural backgrounds with diverse food traditions at odds with standardized food program offerings such as chicken nuggets and pizza.

Second, school choice reforms have spread across the nation, with almost five million students now in private schools.⁴³ These schools are typically much smaller than public schools and freer from top-down bureaucracies.⁴⁴ Private nonprofit schools are eligible to participate in federal school meal programs but, while about 90 percent of public schools participate, less than 20 percent of private schools do.⁴⁵ Private schools may neither want the administrative costs of running rule-laden government programs nor have the institutional capacity for them. As school choice expands, federal food programs become less relevant.

Third, the farm-to-school (FTS) movement runs counter to factory-style school lunch systems. Diverse efforts across the country are bringing fresh local foods into schools to replace the processed offerings typical in school meals. FTS efforts often receive private funds, include volunteers in schools, and are combined with nutrition education and gardening programs. These are worthy efforts, but they can be stymied by school bureaucracies, labor unions, procurement rules, and other regulations.⁴⁶ Congress now subsidizes FTS programs, but it should get out of the way so as not to stifle such innovative approaches with top-down rules.

Federal lunch and breakfast programs hook children on the idea that food magically arrives from big government for free. And receiving bland institutional food undercuts the exploration of nutritious cooking and meal preparation that children should be developing. These days, families can explore an abundance of food options and guidance online for preparing breakfasts and lunches. Schools should teach nutrition to students, but parents should take responsibility for preparing healthy meals tailored to their children’s tastes.

The school lunch and breakfast programs have been subject to improper payments—high rates of fraud and error in benefits. In 2017, the improper-payment rate was 15 percent in the school lunch program and 23 percent in the breakfast program.⁴⁷ Local administrators do little verification of eligibility, so free meals are taken improperly by higher-income families. No proof of income is needed for school lunch applications.

The federal government does not allow the states to verify the application data of more than 3 percent of school food recipients each year. And when households are found to have falsified applications, there are no legal consequences other than to remove the children from the programs. The USDA’s inspector general favors requiring proof of income at application, but Congress has so far rejected this simple anti-fraud measure.⁴⁸

The official improper-payment rates for both the school lunch and breakfast programs have declined in recent years, reaching 8 percent in 2017–2018.⁴⁹ One cause for the decline is that the USDA redefined downwards its improper-payment calculations. Another cause is the rising share of schools using CEP. The improper-payment rate in CEP schools is just 3 percent, compared to 20 percent in non-CEP schools.⁵⁰ Thus, reduced improper payments partly reflect that taxpayers are now legally covering more free meals for higher-income households.

In addition to improper payments, the school food programs suffer from various sorts of mismanagement. Because the programs are funded mainly by the federal government, local officials have little incentive to improve efficiencies.

In Chicago, auditors found that public school officials were routinely submitting inflated data on free lunch eligibility to the federal government. The Chicago Tribune reported that “school districts reap rewards for enrolling as many students as possible in the lunch program, in part because those numbers help determine funding tied to poverty levels.”⁵¹ In another investigation, 21 principals and assistant principals in Chicago public schools were found to have falsified information to gain free lunches for their own children.⁵²

In Dallas, a contractor for the school food program scammed taxpayers out of $2.3 million by inflating meal counts for the USDA’s summer food service program.⁵³ The contractor, Michael Munson, claimed reimbursements for 2.4 million meals provided to children while actually providing only a million meals.

School districts in California have long mismanaged food monies. Officials were caught funneling millions of dollars away from school meals to unauthorized uses.⁵⁴ The Los Angeles Times reported that the “Los Angeles school district’s massive food services program is riddled with mismanagement, inappropriate spending and ethical breaches.”⁵⁵

In New York, school food programs are scandal plagued. In 2024, “a federal judge sentenced a former New York City school food official to two years in prison for taking bribes from a contractor—an arrangement that resulted in kids eating tainted chicken.”⁵⁶ In return for bribes, the official contracted with a company that had repeated health violations in school food provision.⁵⁷ The scandal was “not an aberration. For nearly 30 years, the city’s school food program has been periodically tainted by quality concerns, management lapses and criminal convictions.”⁵⁸

Bid rigging has a long history in the New York school lunch program.⁵⁹ New York auditors “reported that during the fiscal years of 2015 to 2018, the DOE spent more than a half-billion dollars, averaging $134,585,721 per year, on scores of food products called ‘approved brands,’ with no competitive bids or proposals, no published rules or procedures, no transparency, and little if any oversight.”⁶⁰ These overpriced contracts bilked the taxpayer.

In Minnesota, major fraud was uncovered in school food programs in 2021.⁶¹ A group called Feeding Our Future (FOF) spearheaded the theft of $250 million in federal school food aid administered by the state Department of Education (DOE). Federal prosecutors have charged 70 people in the scheme, which involved FOF invoicing the government for vast numbers of meals not actually served at a claimed 250 sites across the state.⁶² At least 18 people have pleaded guilty so far.

FOF had a history of mismanaging public monies and should have been cut off years before this scandal occurred. But even months after the FBI began investigating FOF, the DOE was still making payments to the group. Apparently, DOE officials were hesitant to cut off payments because FOF had filed a lawsuit against the DOE alleging racial discrimination.⁶³

A state audit was scathing regarding the DOE’s failure to act on fraud warnings about FOF.⁶⁴ The episode showed how careless both the federal and state governments have been at handing out food subsidies, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The federal and state governments blamed each other for the Minnesota scandal, and neither entity took responsibility for the costly mess.⁶⁵ This sort of finger-pointing and lack of accountability is common in shared federal-state programs and is another reason the federal government should remove itself from the nation’s school food programs.

Programs funded by the federal government and administered by the states are inherently inefficient, and school food programs are good examples. Inefficiency is encouraged because local officials are spending “free” money from Washington. Mismanagement is exacerbated because responsibilities are diffused across multiple governments. And innovation is stifled because the states are constrained by top-down national rules.

With today’s large federal budget deficits, Congress should end spending that would be better handled by the states. Ending federal aid for school food programs would allow the states to reinvent school lunch and breakfast policies for the new era of choice in schooling. Freed from federal rules, the states would find new ways to aid the needy while adapting to today’s diverse student population and the school choice revolution.

As programs created to boost the intake of calories, the federal school lunch and breakfast programs are outdated. The main nutrition problem for children today is excessive weight and the consumption of unhealthy foods. These are complex problems more likely to be solved by the “laboratories of democracy” in the 50 states and by millions of families themselves.

Congress should end federal spending on school food programs. That could be accomplished by combining the programs into a single block grant for each state and phasing down the funding over time. The states could adapt the programs if they choose, and structure them to fit the local needs of their residents.

Edwards, Chris. “Cutting School Food Subsidies,” Policy Analysis no. 993, Cato Institute, Washington, DC, March 25, 2025.