The case for Harris embracing nationwide free school meals
It’s good policy and good politics.
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Last weekend at a rally in Las Vegas, Kamala Harris announced one of her first explicit new policy positions: a plan to “eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers.”
The proposal follows a similar one by Donald Trump, and as you’d expect from a Trumpworld idea, its not a great one. As Vox explains, experts think eliminating taxes on tips like will mostly benefit employers who can just lower base pay as tip income increases.
More, many service workers earn so little that they don’t pay federal income tax anyway. And of course the policy does nothing to help the many low income workers who don’t receive tips, like those who work in warehouses. What’s really needed is an increase in the minimum wage (which Harris endorsed in the same speech) and an elimination of the subminimum wage carve out for tipped workers (which Harris has not addressed).
The Harris campaign has made a couple of policy promises intended to neutralize Trump talking points. She’s backed away from her 2020 primary opposition to fracking, for example, and promised she won’t pursue a ban on the practice. Outside of that, though, Harris hasn’t put out many detailed policy papers or positions as of yet, and press outlets are starting to push her.
The Hill published an op-ed yesterday with the bad faith headline, “Harris is trying to run a no-substance campaign. Does she believe in anything?” The Atlantic earlier in the week wrote that Harris’s policies were “hard to pin down” and said she could be seen either as a “savvy pragmatist” or a “craven political operator.” The AP was less derogatory, noting that Harris was “cautiously” rolling out economic policy this week, and adding that she seemed focused on “address[ing] 2020 liabilities.”
Policy platforms take some time to put together, and it’s understandable that Harris, who has been running for less than a month, doesn’t have a fully developed one yet. On the other hand, starting out by endorsing a string of obviously transactional policies designed to triangulate Trump voters threatens to blunt the enthusiasm she’s built among Democrats over the last three weeks while providing ammo to those who want to portray her as a flip flopper.
One thing Harris could do to address accusations that she’s cynical or lacks vision is to embrace a high profile, exciting, popular progressive policy which Democrats can rally around and the press can start talking about. A good choice there would be a policy closely associated with Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — free universal school meals for all.
Feed the kids in Minnesota
US schools have programs to provide free meals to poorer students. Families generally have to register and qualify to receive these benefits.
The problem here is that when school meals are means tested, families who could take advantage of the program feel that they are being stigmatized for being poor and are reluctant to sign up or have their kids eat school meals. This is especially worrisome because free school meals can have a major positive effect on student nutrition, on family nutrition, and on student success.
Researchers found that food insecurity declined five percent after universal free lunches became available. Families also purchased healthier foods since they had more money for it and healthy shopping tends to cost more. Students, unsurprisingly, do better in school when they are not hungry; a 2021 Brookings report found that free school meals boosted math performance, especially for students in elementary school. It also reduced school suspensions.
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Outcomes like these led Walz and Democrats in Minnesota’s legislature to pass a bill providing free breakfast and lunch for all schoolchildren, with no means testing, in March 2023. The policy was announced in a photogenic signing ceremony where Walz was surrounded by and then hugged by a whole bunch of smiling children.
The feel-good vibes did not end with the bill’s passage. The program has 70 percent support in the state and has been hugely successful. By ending means testing, Walz removed the stigma from getting a free lunch, and lots more kids and families responded by taking advantage of school meals. One school saw 50 percent more students eat breakfast and 30 percent more eat lunch in the cafeteria. In the fall of 2023, the state as a whole served 4.3 million more breakfasts and 4.5 million more lunches than in fall of 2022.
Feed the kids everywhere
Despite its benefits and popularity, Republicans have attacked school lunch programs. They’ve argued that since the programs aren’t means tested, the schools are feeding students from wealthier families. Walz dismissed these criticisms with a rhetorical flourish.
“Isn’t that rich? Our Republican colleagues were concerned this would be a tax cut for the wealthiest,” he said. “The haves and have-nots in the lunchroom is not a necessary thing. Just feed our children.”
It's true, though, that the program — in part because of its popularity — has been more expensive than originally budgeted. The cost is $81 million more over two years than anticipated, and another $95 million more in the two years after that.
Again, this is in many ways a good thing. Some of the kids eating school lunches may not necessarily need free school lunches. But many were dissuaded from eating by stigma. Others come from families with modest means but who weren’t poor enough to qualify. Ultimately, however, the goal was to feed more kids, and the program is feeding many more kids. This is a success.
That success, though, can put strain on state budgets. Which is all the more reason for the federal government to step in.
The US did have a national universal free school lunch program during the height of the pandemic. In the 2021-2022 school year, some 16.5 million children received free school meals. When the program lapsed, that number decreased by 1.2 million, or 7.7 percent.
The covid-era program inspired some states to take matters into their own hands. A number of them — like Vermont, Colorado, Maine, California, and New Mexico — saw the benefits and passed their own expansion of school meal programs.
Again, though, meal programs are more expensive when they are more successful. But long term, and overall, there’s strong evidence that investing in food security for children is a smart investment even on purely financial metrics.
For example, a 2022 analysis of SNAP benefits found that individuals in food insecure households spend about 45 percent more on medical care ($6,100/year) than people who do not experience food insecurity ($4,200/year). Or again, a 2019 study of Head Start preschool programs found that participants’ children were 49 percent less likely to be arrested or incarcerated.
SNAP and Head Start are not the same as universal school lunch programs. But they suggest that investing in children and in food security can reduce health care costs and criminal justice costs substantially. School lunch programs look expensive now. But they’re a powerful investment in children’s future health and success and can reap major dividends down the line.
States generally have to balance budgets year to year and so can struggle to make these kinds of long-term investments. But the federal government is a different story. It can plan for a longer horizon. It can generate income through soaking the rich with a wealth tax (a popular policy with some 61 percent support). Or Democrats could simply let the billions in Trump tax cuts for the wealthy expire.
Make the GOP admit they want to take food from kids
Of course, the GOP will whine and groan and gnash their MAGA molars. They will insist that tax cuts for billionaires is more important than food for hungry children. They’ll rush to fight the overwhelmingly popular school lunch program. They’ll rush to fight the overwhelmingly popular policy of soaking the rich.
Democrats should encourage them to do that. Universal school meals is a good policy for kids, a financially sound investment, and an overwhelmingly popular program. It will excite the Democratic base; it will underline that Republicans are horrible. And it’s a program already closely associated with the Democratic ticket thanks to Walz. It would be an organic commitment born of passion and very hard to pillory as a cynical political calculation.
If Harris is looking for signature policy platforms, she — and hungry children across the country — couldn’t do much better. “Just feed our children” is a good campaign slogan and good policy too.
That’s it for today
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Thanks for reading.
Great piece that shows the tragic belief many hold that the GOP is wiser on fiscal policy than the Democratic Party. Republicans will hem and haw about crime without creating practical solutions that can not only reduce costs in dealing with societal deficiencies but also address root causes.
Compared to trump, Harris' economic policy positions are a dissertation with footnotes. I wholeheartedly agree with your inspired campaign slogan and the policies it represents. However, I refuse to give any credence to corporate media's self serving, dishonest, outrageous and nefarious reporting. “Harris is trying to run a no-substance campaign. Does she believe in anything?” This is just sick. Make it stop.