How do kids qualify for free or reduced lunch?

[Anonymous]

It appears there are tons of parents taking advantage of the system.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maureensullivan/2015/08/31/why-does-it-seem-that-everyone-gets-a-free-lunch-in-school-except-your-kid/#5c01518c102e

[Anonymous]

The math in that article is astoundingly bad, because it fails to take into account the fact that a higher percentage of kids who get free lunch eat school lunch than their peers, many of whom pack.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The math in that article is astoundingly bad, because it fails to take into account the fact that a higher percentage of kids who get free lunch eat school lunch than their peers, many of whom pack.

That's an interesting angle to take, though I'm not sure that it's even true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School counselor here and just as often it's hard to get parents to complete the paperwork when they do qualify. Let's just agree to feed the kids, no questions asked.

+1000

[Anonymous]

I can’t imagine being so petty as to care about kids “cheating” or lying to get free food. If you’re concerned about the government wasting tax dollars, there are dozens of other places you can look.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fwiw, the vast majority of people are honest.

OP here. I believe that as well and obviously the schools that have the largest number of farm families are located in low income areas, so presumably many of them are being truthful, but I guess I find it rather hard to believe that this all operates on the honor system, and there is no attempt to determine whether the family’s income is as low as what they self report.

not the case. There are FARMS kids in very expensive areas too.

[Anonymous]

Crazy how the rich get up in arms about FARMs. SNAP and FARMS fraud is estimated at 330 million tax dollars nationwide. That is less that 1 dollar per person in the US. And mostly comes from retail stores and vendors committing fraud or low income people staying on for longer than their benefit period.

Comparatively speaking, offshore banking accounts for 70-80 BILLION in tax payer dollar fraud...

The majority of expenses involved in administering the FARMS programs are attributed to paying salaries...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the recent past, families at my school self reported. Believe me, no one wants school lunch. It's gross. Also, no one wants teachers and office staff to know they are poor. In the last year though, my district did away with any income verification. Any kid who wants breakfast or lunch can have it, free of charge. This change happened because older kids were beginning to put together "they are poor" with the kids who don't pay each day. Our state didn't want kids avoiding ordering lunch because they didn't want to be seen as poor. No kid wants to be the poor kid. Some will go hungry to avoid that stigma. Especially, if they are in a district like mine with a wide income spread. We have families of 6 living on less than 20K a year and then we have families of 3 living on 100K. That's a big difference.

What state is this? Here all kids have an identical lunch card. No one can tell whether the parent put money in the kid's account or if they are getting reduced lunch. I find it highly surprising that your state hasn't thought of this.

Yeah, in our school, kids have PIN numbers for this reason. No one knows who pays and who doesn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t imagine being so petty as to care about kids “cheating” or lying to get free food. If you’re concerned about the government wasting tax dollars, there are dozens of other places you can look.

It is actually FRAUD, not "kids cheating."

And, no, it's not OK to take resources away from people who are actually in dire need of food.