The effect of universal free school meals on children’s food hardship

Saied Toossi

Food Policy, 2024, vol. 124, issue C

Abstract: In the United States, the federal government subsidized universal free school meals (UFSM) nationwide during the COVID-19 pandemic. This policy ended in June 2022. In response, several state governments subsidized extensions of UFSM statewide into the 2022–2023 school year. I leverage variation in state extensions of UFSM to examine the policy’s impact on school meal participation and rates of food insufficiency. Using data from the Household Pulse Survey and a difference-in-differences approach, I find that children in states that did not extend UFSM were 12.6 percentage points less likely (38.3% reduction over the sample mean) to participate in school meal programs and 1.5 percentage points more likely (9.8% increase over the sample mean) to experience food insufficiency relative to those in states that did.

Keywords: National School Lunch Program; School Breakfast Program; Universal free school meals; Covid-19 pandemic; Food security; Food insufficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:124:y:2024:i:c:s0306919224000174

DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102606

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