Number of Schoolchildren Receiving Federally Subsidized Lunches Soars

Despite the government's insistence that the United States is not in a recession, many signs indicate the opposite. The New York Times is reporting that the number of schoolchildren who qualify and receive either subsidized or free lunches from the federal government has grown in every state over the past four years and shows no signs of slowing.

It's all about jobs, the paper says. When a factory closes down in a small town, large percentages of families that live there are affected; and not just those who lose their jobs. It's a trickledown effect. When a factory closes, those people that used to work there stop buying from local establishments, causing those shops, stores, restaurants and even grocery stores to start laying off people, further adding to the numbers that find it difficult to pay for such simple necessities as lunch for their children.

The federal lunch program came about as a result of Congress passing in 1946, the National School Lunch Act in 1946 to help both farmers and families with children. Back then, the government bought produce and meat from farmers to help them stay in business during tough times which it then donated to schools for feeding needy children lunch. Since that time, the program has blossomed into a ten and a half billion dollar program that feeds some thirty two million kids every day, a number that has risen by seventeen percent over the past four years. The paper notes that such an increase should not come as a surprise to those following the news as it has been widely reported that nearly a quarter of American children now live at or below the poverty line.

What's perhaps worse is that the numbers reflect averages, which don't show the huge spikes in a few very troubled states such as Florida, Nevada, New Jersey and Tennessee, which have all seen a rise of at least twenty five percent in the numbers of schoolchildren being enrolled in the program.

To be eligible for the program, children must be a part of a family of a certain size that brings in a certain amount of yearly income; a family of four for example that brings in $29,955 or less would be able to have all their children fed lunches for free. For a family of four that makes $41,343 or less, their family would be eligible for subsidized lunches, which means they would pay substantially less for each meal than would those not in the program.

To see how bad things have grown, some local communities have seen the numbers of new children entering the program surge by sixty or seventy percent when one large employer goes away.