[NEWS] Republican bill will reduce free school lunch

[Ninja Decoy]

when i was in highschool lunches were around $3.50, and it was a choice of a stuffty low quality daily "meal", a single slice of pizza, or if you add another $1 for a very stuffty sandwich, with a pint of milk.

I wish i was able to drive then so i could just go to caesers and get the $5 pizza for 8x the food

[Ad Bot]

[Lego lad]

the lunch at my school is paid but still tastes like soap :(

[Frankie²]

my highschool lunches were commonly $7-$10

[Zloff]

when i was in highschool lunches were around $3.50, and it was a choice of a stuffty low quality daily "meal", a single slice of pizza, or if you add another $1 for a very stuffty sandwich, with a pint of milk.

^all of this this-- only difference being i actually was within one mile of a lil c, mcrichards, and arbys, and took full advantage of that fact lol. students aren't/weren't allowed to leave during the lunch periods, but a friend & i would slip in/out through our arch teacher's classroom since she didn't care what we did

[King Tøny]

I took the 3 dollars from my parents and chose not to have lunch so I could get an easy 3 dollars per day, 5 days a week.

[Trogtor]

my highschool lunches were commonly $7-$10

did you go to a private school or something that's obsurd

[PhantOS]

double posting to address this-

Cutting down on the number of students on free lunch programs doesn't automatically give companies more money. Odds are the school either employs directly their kitchen staff or contracts a company to send people in to cook. Those people still get paid regardless of if someone receives a "free" lunch. The company still gets paid for providing the service if contracted. The money likely comes out of the taxpayer's pocket to pay for these free lunches.

That's like saying reducing the gas tax would give oil companies more money. It doesn't work that way.

If you're referring to things like safety/environmental regulations, that's an entirely different issue.

my post was unrelated to the school lunch aspect, it was a response to red spy. safety environment regulations.

I'm hoping they're just reducing free lunch to the students that need it. i went to a high school and practically a quarter of the students were on free lunch and most of them were more than able to afford it.

'able to afford it' is really subjective if you don't know their family's entire financial situation through and through. there are families that may earn a total of 80-100k a year but that all gets lost to rent, medical bills, electricity, clothing and other necessities that are required to live. it's not below the poverty line, but after all the budgeting is complete they may be left over with like 8-10,000$ a year for personal things, and that also disappears pretty quickly for things like netflix subscriptions, computer fixes, various services that cost money. paid lunch would reduce 800$ out of that final budget, which seems like not a lot but it could really be used for other things.

I live with my mother & she's a single parent, she earns around 50-60k a year and we're a two people household. regardless, there's barely enough money to go around for personal luxuries and on top of that she's super stressed with work and other aspects of life. I pay for breakfast and dinner out of my paycheck because she can't afford it anymore. if i now had to pay 4$ extra for lunch I would literally kill myself

on top of that we also live in new york, which is a rent nightmare. the lesson is don't be so liberal on who you label 'able to afford lunch' because you'd really be surprised by who can and can't

[Alternat¡ve]

that also disappears pretty quickly for things like netflix subscriptions, computer fixes, various services that cost money. paid lunch would reduce 800$ out of that final budget, which seems like not a lot but it could really be used for other things.

If you can't afford lunch for your children then you shouldn't be paying for things as trivial as Netflix.

[Tactical Nuke]

meanwhile my school is running a campaign against wasting food

didn't John Oliver talk about how insane the food waste in this country is? if you make people pay a small price for it, they'll be more frugal with what they eat and they won't throw it at each other and pour all the salt and pepper into a glass of orange juice like at my old school

and if we're talking about finances your priority as a parent is your kids, if you can't pay for food each day it's time to start asking yourself what useless junk you are spending your money on

and it should go without saying that you should probably be financially prepared to raise a kid, too

the average cost to raise a child to adulthood is around $250,000, if you're not willing to commit that much money or you can't, then don't have kids, or make them contribute to the family's finances by working too

[PhantOS]

meanwhile my school is running a campaign against wasting food

didn't John Oliver talk about how insane the food waste in this country is? if you make people pay a small price for it, they'll be more frugal with what they eat and they won't throw it at each other and pour all the salt and pepper into a glass of orange juice like at my old school

and if we're talking about finances your priority as a parent is your kids, if you can't pay for food each day it's time to start asking yourself what useless junk you are spending your money on

and it should go without saying that you should probably be financially prepared to raise a kid, too

the average cost to raise a child to adulthood is around $250,000, if you're not willing to commit that much money or you can't, then don't have kids, or make them contribute to the family's finances by working too

I'm all for a campaign against wasted food, that would definitely save money and feed more people. Maybe instead they could package up wasted food and bring it to the local homeless shelter, then it's not entirely a waste.

The point of free and reduced lunch is so children won't have to starve due to their parents bad financial decisions. This whole thing about 'its the parents fault that they're wasting money' sounds correct but the child should still receive free lunch, since punishing the child for their parents mistakes is cruel and idiotic.

Also keep in mind that in many states you're not allowed to work until 16, and children from 5-18 years old are eligible for free or reduced lunch. This means that your 'making kids contribute' aspect is also moot. Either way, working part-time as a student returns like 3,000 a year and forcing a child to pay for their own school lunch as an institution is criminal, especially if they earn that little and are doing it part-time for themselves

[Trymos]

and if we're talking about finances your priority as a parent is your kids, if you can't pay for food each day it's time to start asking yourself what useless junk you are spending your money on

and it should go without saying that you should probably be financially prepared to raise a kid, too

the average cost to raise a child to adulthood is around $250,000, if you're not willing to commit that much money or you can't, then don't have kids, or make them contribute to the family's finances by working too

welcome to the real loving world

anything and everything you develop you HAVE to assume that the targeted demographics are a bunch of blithering self serving asstards.

they WONT ask what useless junk they're spending their money on, nor will they even bother to find a way to get their children lunch, majority of the time in this situation they'll just let the child go without lunch.

they WONT double check if they're financially prepared, because people are naturally handicapped and don't think things through.

if you develop a system that depends on the honor system, even on something as important as their loving children, they WILL skimp on their children because "they dont have money and the government is taking it all" or some similar stuff. you wouldn't believe how many parents skimp on clothing for their children, you REALLY don't want to attempt something like paid lunches for them.

if you just call social services then everybody loses and you got many, MANY court cases that these parents will not stop pushing. everybody loses out on that solution.

[PhantOS]

also worth mentioning that checking someone's extra financial decisions and luxuries as a school is unconstitutional. they can't say 'well you wasted this much money on netflix therefore your child wont get lunch' because they aren't legally allowed to see what you spend money on unless you directly tell them.

[Tactical Nuke]

I'm all for a campaign against wasted food, that would definitely save money and feed more people. Maybe instead they could package up wasted food and bring it to the local homeless shelter, then it's not entirely a waste.

agreed

The point of free and reduced lunch is so children won't have to starve due to their parents bad financial decisions. This whole thing about 'its the parents fault that they're wasting money' sounds correct but the child should still receive free lunch, since punishing the child for their parents mistakes is cruel and idiotic.

I'll admit I don't know exactly how to fix this, but there are millions of other solutions that could discourage that type of spending

Also keep in mind that in many states you're not allowed to work until 16, and children from 5-18 years old are eligible for free or reduced lunch. This means that your 'making kids contribute' aspect is also moot.

you've never mowed neighbor's lawns or run a lemonade stand when you were a kid?

[PhantOS]

you've never mowed neighbor's lawns or run a lemonade stand when you were a kid?

lmao

we dont have lawns in new york, or the wood or sidewalk space to start a lemonade stand. either way, those kid capitalism jobs produce less than 5,000 a year if you were to operate it on a daily basis as a regular business. nobody mows a lawn 7 hours a day for an entire week, so it comes down to maybe a few hundred dollars here and there. Making an adolescent child pay for their own school lunch through measly side jobs is some pre-square deal teddy roosevelt-era stuff that only a corrupt CEO would think is a good idea.

kids shouldn't be forced to work just to feed themselves because their parents and school won't. that's horrible

[Daswiruch]

you've never mowed neighbor's lawns or run a lemonade stand when you were a kid?

i'm not phanto but i sure as hell haven't
i live in the middle of bumforget nowhere
my neighborhood consists of like 4 other houses that only have old people in them
no cars came around because it was the middle of bumforget nowhere
and i couldn't mow lawns because the old people already mowed their own lawns