This report summarizes findings from the School Meals Operations Study (SMO), part of an ongoing series to assess school meal operations on a school year (SY) basis. This volume of the study covers July 2021 through the end of September 2022 and includes SY 2021-2022. When the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020, the Families First Coronavirus…

The US Department of Agriculture runs a large array of farm and food subsidy programs. The school lunch and breakfast programs are two of the largest, which together with related school food programs will cost federal taxpayers an estimated $35 billion in 2025. Thirty million children, about 58 percent of students in public schools, receive school…

We study the private market response to the National School Lunch Program, documenting economically meaningful spillovers to non-recipients. We focus on the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), an expansion of the lunch program under the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Under the CEP, participating schools offer free lunch to all students. We…

The federal government has a long history of investing in programs for feeding children, starting with federal aid for school lunch programs in the 1930s. Today, federal child nutrition programs support food served to children in schools and a variety of other settings. This report starts with an overview of child nutrition programs' funding…

USDA helps millions of children from low-income households access healthy meals by purchasing food, including seafood, for the NSLP. USDA-purchased foods represent about 15 to 20 percent of the food served in the NSLP. According to the DGA, programs, such as the NSLP, can play an essential role in providing access to healthy meals. This can help…

House Republicans have passed their version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which now goes to the Senate for consideration. The goal is to pass the bill by July, though final content and timeline are subject to change. The bill puts forth several changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) aimed at reducing federal spending…

Background: Despite the establishment of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) in 2010, child nutrition programs continue to experience challenges impacting participation. Prior qualitative studies have explored how to reduce barriers to implementation of these programs in schools, but few studies have examined attitudes held by students, who…

Background: Despite the establishment of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) in 2010, child nutrition programs continue to experience challenges impacting participation. Prior qualitative studies have explored how to reduce barriers to implementation of these programs in schools, but few studies have examined attitudes held by students, who…

Purpose/Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine and discuss common challenges associated with obtaining the correct school meal benefits level from the National School Lunch and School Breakfast program application process. The findings provide insights and policy recommendations for improving school meal processes and reducing the…

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is the Nation's second-largest food and nutrition assistance program, providing billions of meals to tens of millions of children and adolescents each year. USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) periodically reports on NSLP policies and program operations, often after major changes to the program's rules…

Background: The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) provides >30 million meals to children daily; however, the specific nutrient composition of NSLP-selected and consumed meals for students from lower income and racial/ethnic minoritized backgrounds is unknown. Aims: To quantify the nutrients in school lunch selection and consumption among…

In this dissertation I use modern microeconomic methods to examine the impact of K-12 education policy interventions on student outcomes. In the first chapter I explore how increased funding for school policing and sentiment surrounding school policing can have downstream effects on student discipline, and how these effects vary by student and…

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP) provide federal funding for school lunches and breakfasts served to nearly 30 million children daily in close to 94,000 schools. Because federal spending on NSLP and SBP depends in part on student participation in school meals, it may be of interest to Congress to…

The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 allows school districts to provide free meals to all students if over 40 percent of them are directly certified as free-meal eligible. While emerging evidence documents positive effects on student behavior and academics, critics worry that CEP has unintended…

Poverty has an enormous impact on children and their success in school. Children with low socioeconomic status often perform poorly in reading. Poor reading skills often lead to truancy, low rates of high school graduation, low-paying jobs, and cycles of illiteracy in generations of families. Secondary data was collected from the Tennessee…