A growing number of school meals are served at no charge to students

On a typical school day in fiscal 2015, 30 million children participated in USDA’s National School Lunch Program and 14 million in the School Breakfast Program. Children from families with incomes at or below 130 percent of Federal poverty guidelines are eligible for free meals, and those from families with incomes between 130 and 185 percent of poverty guidelines are eligible for reduced-price meals. Children from families with incomes over 185 percent of poverty guidelines pay full price, although their meals are subsidized to a small extent. Over twice as many meals were served in the National School Lunch Program (5 billion) as in the School Breakfast Program (2.3 billion) in FY 2015. About 80 percent of breakfasts were served free compared with 65 percent of lunches. Another 6 percent of breakfasts and 7 percent of lunches were served at a reduced price. The share of free meals served in both programs has increased since 2005. Increases in the poverty rate for children and the recent Community Eligibility Provision, which allows schools in areas with high poverty rates to offer breakfast and lunch at no charge to all students, may be among the factors that contributed to the increase in children receiving free school meals. The 2015 data for this chart are from the ERS report, The Food Assistance Landscape: FY 2015 Annual Report, March 2016.

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