Over the past month, I’ve been working on updating the Ohio Poverty Measure, a report published by Scioto Analysis that uses local data to provide the most accurate picture of poverty across Ohio. This measure is based on other poverty measures like the California poverty measure, and the New York City poverty measure, all of which are based on the Supplemental poverty measure.
These measures improve on the official poverty measure by accounting for non-wage income that people have like SNAP benefits, subtracting unavoidable costs like work or medical expenses, and making a geographic adjustment for cost of living.
During this research, one thing that stuck out to me was the inclusion of free and reduced breakfast and lunch at schools as an addition to income. What surprised me about this was just how inexpensive these meals were, usually only a few dollars per meal.
This made me wonder, how much good did these free meals actually provide for students? Would increasing the accessibility of these meals be a low-cost way to substantially improve outcomes for low-to-middle income students?
Overall, the research supports the idea that free lunch is beneficial for students. In the short run, one study found that universal free meals improved test scores for both poor and non-poor students. This suggests that there might be an effect beyond offering meals to students who otherwise might not be able to afford eating lunch. Since test scores are correlated with future earnings, this means offering school lunch could be a long-term intervention for improving human capital and fostering economic growth.
Another study found that the quality of a school lunch can have an impact on test scores. More nutritional meals in California public schools were associated with better performance on standardized tests. This effect could potentially help explain why test scores increased among non-poor students who do not receive free lunch as well as those who receive subsidized lunch. On the margins, it is likely that some students could have improved the nutritional content of their lunches by switching to the meals offered by the school.
One study from Sweden found that the adoption of free school lunches in the 1960’s led to higher lifetime earnings for students. This is unsurprising, as we know that adolescent academic performance is associated with higher earnings as an adult.
What are the implications of this for policymakers? Universal free lunch for students on the surface seems like it could be a valuable investment. To know for sure, a full cost-benefit analysis would be needed. The evidence we have now is enough to make the idea credible.
Still, it is important to remember that this program can be expensive. In Minnesota, where universal free lunch recently became law, lawmakers initially underestimated the costs of the program by almost $100 million, causing some to argue that the program needs to be scaled back. Other policymakers who consider free lunch programs should recognize that the demand for lunch goes well beyond poor students.
Hopefully, Minnesota can continue their free lunch program and other states can look to it to see its effectiveness. Maybe one day, this program will enable us to measure the long-run effects that free lunch has on these students' adult outcomes.