Ending universal free school lunch.
That didn't last long, did it?
It took a pandemic for Congress to fund a program that would feed lunch to every public school kid.
That was back in 2020.
Is the pandemic still with us?
Yep.
Are there still hungry kids?
Yep.
But the universal school lunch program ends this summer.
There is a federally funded summer lunch program but it falls way short of what it should be.
In 2019, more than 1 in 7 children—10.7 million—were food insecure. Families struggled to afford healthy meals, forcing them to rely on low-cost food to feed their children, skip meals, or even go hungry.
There was hope that the flexibilities created early in the plague would continue through the next school year. But despite some lobbying from anti-hunger activists efforts to extend the program encountered resistance from Republicans and ultimately failed.
An aide to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that the minority leader and the Republicans think schools no longer need the pandemic-era provisions.
In June Biden signed the Keep Kids Fed Act, which equips schools, summer meal sites and child-care food programs with extra resources to weather rising food and labor costs.
But it allows the universal lunch provision to sunset at the start of the coming school year.
The universal school lunch program needs to be extended.
My brother Michael Klonsky is back live, Hitting Left at Lumpen Radio, 105.5 FM.
This week he is joined by co-host Susan Klonsky to discuss the news of the week and the second half hour with Amanda Klonsky, on prison justice and Covid.
You can receive the podcast version of the show.
