The U.S. Census Bureau credits the school lunch program with keeping hungry children fed during pandemic.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Recent data here shows that the school lunch program was an important part of the social safety net during the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s experimental Household Plus Survey (HPS), roughly 20 percent of at-risk households with children reported being food insecure – defined as sometimes or often not having enough to eat – in the early week of the pandemic when many schools were closed.

As new policies were enacted in response to COVID-19, Census researchers Lestina Dongo and Lindsay Monte report that food insecurity in households with children declined.

Drawing on data from the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), Dongo and Monte say that prior to the pandemic in 2019, roughly 33.2 million children received meals at schools. That included about 21.3 million who received free school lunches.

When the pandemic hit, however, it disrupted many aspects of life, including closing schools and jeopardizing access to school lunches.

But there were many changes to federal policies designed to compensate for the loss of school lunches.

Some school districts offered meals that could be picked up or delivered via school bus transportation.

Emergency funds for nutritional benefits were provided directly to Electronic Benefit Transfer cards for households whose children would normally receive free or reduced cost lunches at school.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) waived the eligibility requirements for free lunches to allow school meal programs to provide safe, healthy meals to all children. Moreover, those flexibilities were extended to June of 2022.

Among households with children facing economic insecurity – defined as one in which an adult indicated concern about the ability to pay the next month’s rent or mortgage – food insecurity fell by about 7 percentage points, from 21.3 percent in April/May of 2020 to 14.2 percent in the summer of 2021.

Dongo and Monte say that decline was likely the result of improving economic circumstances, as well as Child Tax Credits and stimulus payments.

When most kids returned to school last fall, Dongo and Monte report that the budget for school meals looked more like it did pre-pandemic.

HPS data shows that, although more households had access to free school meals during the pandemic, the budget was still higher for households that demonstrated financial need.

For example, roughly 39 percent of all households with kids in school reported receiving free school meals in December 2021.

But 54 percent of households with kids that received benefits from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a means-tested assistance program, reported receiving school meals.

Dongo and Monte are researchers in the Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division of the Census Bureau.







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