Trump school-lunch plan could leave Florida’s hungry children even hungrier | Editorial
Freeze out thousands of needy Florida students from the national free-lunch program? It’s a terrible idea.
But the Trump administration is pushing this heartless measure. Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis, members of its congressional delegation and, especially, Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott have the president’s ear. They need to speak into it loud and clear in defense of our kids.
A proposal by the U.S. Department of Agriculture would restrict the number of Americans who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits — formerly food stamps — by taking away the states’ ability to tweak income and asset limits for households that receive both food stamps and other welfare benefits. It’s an unnecessary federal instrusion into how states serve their residents.
In Florida, such flexibility has allowed the Department of Children & Families to raise the threshold for SNAP qualification. Children from households with incomes up to 200 percent of the poverty level receive food stamps.
That same SNAP participation also grants those children automatic access to free school lunches, a provision that’s part of the USDA’s National School Lunch Program.
In Florida, almost 200,000 children could lose both their food stamps and also their automatic eligibility for free lunches at school. That means food instability both at home and at school, where the lunch could be the one nutritious and reliable meal students get during the day.
But if approved, the stricter eligibility criteria imposed would affect 328,000 Floridians — and 3 million people nationwide — who would see their SNAP benefits end.
In Miami-Dade, with its staggering amount of income inequality, that would hit students and their families hard — 71 percent of the student body is enrolled in the National School Lunch Program. According to Feeding South Florida, Miami-Dade has the highest percentage of “food insecure” children in South Florida, with 19.4 percent of the county’s children going to bed hungry.
Yes, according to the Food and Nutrition Service, of the 982,000 children whose households would lose food stamps, almost half of them would still qualify for free lunch. But eligible families can’t have a household income that surpasses 130 percent of the poverty line, or $33,475 for a family of four.
The majority of affected households would still be eligible for free- and reduced-price meals for their kids — if they file an application specifically for the National School Lunch Program. They would not get automatic approval.
Having to fill out another government form likely will thin the overall number of applicants, experts say. Will parents burdened by poverty, unemployment, minimum-wage jobs or illiteracy consistently fill out these new government forms? If not, fewer children will get free lunch and SNAP benefits. The government predicts the SNAP changes could reduce federal school-meal program expenses by roughly $90 million a year that way. Mission accomplished.
This proposal packs a potent double whammy: State and municipalities know best the particular needs of their residents. The federal government should not tie their hands as they seek to serve their constituents. Second, saving taxpayer money in such an underhanded way that leaves more families struggling for food is, simply, cruel. And Florida’s Republican governor and senators should say so.
This story was originally published December 4, 2019 at 5:00 AM.