This week, voters across the country went to the polls to vote on a bevy of state and local candidates and issues. You would be forgiven for thinking that because it is not a federal election year, there were only votes being cast in New York City, Virginia and New Jersey, but I promise there were elections across the country.
In my hometown of Saint Paul, we just elected a new mayor, voted to increase property taxes, and voted to allow administrative citations for certain violations of city ordinances. Today though, I wanted to talk about one election result that may have flown under some people’s radar.
Colorado’s Propositions LL and MM passed on Tuesday, which are both related to funding the school’s universal free school breakfast and lunch program. The specific mechanisms between the two propositions are different, but in essence they both asked voters to decide if they wanted to allow the state to collect additional tax revenue to fund this program.
The reason Colorado had to ask voters to collect additional revenue is because they underestimated how popular the program would be, and they did not allocate enough money at the outset. Minnesota faced similar challenges when we rolled out our free school meal program, with uptake being higher than expected.
At Scioto Analysis, our most recent cost-benefit analysis was about the impact that universal free school meals would have in Ohio. We found that despite the fact that many students already qualify for free meals, making the program universal would still create large positive impacts for the state.
In a blog post I wrote on that paper, I talked about some of the reasons that making a program universal could have some inherent benefits, even if the benefits are accruing to people who might not have difficulty accessing something on their own. However, in the specific context of universal free school meals, we find that big benefits accrue to families that don’t otherwise struggle with food security.
One major benefit that accrues to parents is the time saved that they otherwise would have to spend preparing and packing lunches for their children. In Ohio, we estimated that time spent not packing lunches could be worth $15 million to parents of children over the course of a year. I would argue the fact that Colorado and Minnesota both had more people take advantage of the free meals being provided is evidence that parents do have high values for this time.
The unexpectedly high uptake of universal free school meal programs in states like Colorado and Minnesota suggests that their appeal extends beyond families facing food insecurity. For these families, the value lies less in the meals themselves and more in the convenience and time savings. Preparing and packing lunches every day represents a real cost in terms of time spent, and when presented with an appealing alternative, parents respond accordingly.
Our research suggests that the benefits of providing free school meals outweigh the costs. Colorado voters seem to agree with that assessment. We’ll have to wait and see how today's students benefit in the long run from this policy, but we can be certain that many parents are getting some of their precious time back.