Leftist’s Guide to Welfare: Child Nutrition

Administered	Federal /state/local
Federal agency	US Department of Agriculture – FNS
Enacted in	NSLP – 1946; SBP & SMP – 1966; SFSP – 1968; FFVP – 2002
Purpose	Kids receive free or reduced-price meals and milk at school or at summer sites
Participation	NSLP – 30.5m; SBP – 14.1m; SFSP – 3.9m (SY 2015)
Eligibility	Gross income below 130% FPL for free, 185% FPL for reduced-price
Structure	Kids eat for free or low price; districts are reimbursed by federal government
Funding category	Mandatory, open-ended (FFVP is formula-funded)
Cost	$21.2 billion (FY15)

The Child Nutrition programs are separate but similar programs that reimburse schools in all states, territories, and those run by the Department of Defense for free- or reduced-price (students pay 40 cents for lunch and 30 cents for breakfast) meals, snacks, or milk served to children in public, private, and charter schools or childcare institutions, or at summer meal sites:

• National School Lunch Program (NSLP)
• School Breakfast Program (SBP)
• Special Milk Program (SMP)
• Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP)
• Summer Food Service Program (SFSP)

There are also two auxiliary programs which act as subsidies for school meals:

• Entitlement foods. USDA purchases and distributes food to schools. Each school gets about 23 cents per meal served for NSLP/SBP or 1.5 cents per meal for SFSP to spend on these foods. They can also request bonus foods from USDA surplus. Food is available for selection by schools based on a list posted each school year.
• Department of Defense Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (DoD Fresh). The Department of Defense Logistics Agency purchases over $100m worth of fresh produce every fiscal year that schools can use their entitlement foods to purchase.

The Matter at Hand

The school meals programs face their biggest threat in years right now, as a proposal to block grant the program passed out of committee in the House in May 2016, echoing a similar proposal that passed the House in 1995 but ultimately died. The bill would create a pilot program where three states’ school meals programs would be turned into block grants, thus paving the way for the total TANFization of the programs. While the funding would be the same in the first year, block grants don’t rise in response to cyclical need (and the next recession is around the corner), don’t rise with inflation, and allow states a broad range of discretion with the program’s funding. In other words, it would kill the school meals program as currently constituted.

While the current Child Nutrition programs are among the best in the world, the demand from the left should be for universal school meals: breakfast, lunch, and snacks free for every student, using dietary guidelines that are free from the malingering influence of agricultural lobbies. For summers, when kids aren’t in schools, the demand should be for the implementation and expansion of the Summer EBT for Children (SEBTC) program, which provides SNAP-like benefits in the summer and cuts hunger by a third, as a complement to and not replacement for the Summer Food Service Program.

Leftist’s Guide to Welfare: SNAP

Name	Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
Administered	Federal and state
Federal agency	US Department of Agriculture – FNS
Enacted in	1964
Purpose	Helps people afford food
Participation	44.3 million (March 2016)
Eligibility	Generally 130% FPL gross income and 100% FPL net income; $2,250 asset limit
Structure	Monthly cash-like payments on EBT (debit) cards
Funding category	Mandatory, open-ended
Cost	$74 billion (FY15)

The Matter at Hand

Few programs face the scrutiny that SNAP endures. This year, hundreds of thousands of people were removed from the benefit after a provision to suspend work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents ended. Calls to cut SNAP, often cloaked under nebulous justifications about fraud and abuse, are constant. Perversely, it’s only the fact that the benefit functions as a major subsidy to big grocers and agricultural producers that the program continues without block granting. That doesn’t mean SNAP participation isn’t highly stigmatized, or that the program won’t be gutted in the future. After all, the 2016 Republican Platform called to separate SNAP from the Farm Bill and take it away from the Department of Agriculture in order to gut the program.

The left’s demand for SNAP should be, on one hand, expansion of access by increasing income limits and disregards and streamlining application processes.  On the other, we must call for a blanket increase in benefits to meet actual dietary and budget needs, including pegging a minimum benefit to inflation. Finally, we must fight against attempts to discipline the poor by, for instance, limiting SNAP purchases to foods deemed “healthy” in an undemocratic process. The requirements for retailers to accept SNAP should be made contingent not on the size and diversity of inventory a store carries, but rather upon how how that retailer treats its workers.

Leftist’s Guide to Welfare: Overview

Funding

The federal fiscal year begins on October 1 and ends on September 30.

Federal programs can be authorized and funded in two ways: mandatory and discretionary. It’s also important to understand that a significant amount of the US welfare-state is provided for by private entities, particularly employers.