Education and Skills

New York is offering free lunches to all 1.1 million school kids

New York mayor Bill de Blasio eats lunch with fifth graders at Journey Prep School on the first day of the city's public school opening in the Bronx borough of New York, September 4, 2014. REUTERS/Susan Watts/Pool    (UNITED STATES - Tags: EDUCATION) - TM3EA94159H01

The Free School Lunch For All program aims to give kids access to lunch at school.

Image: REUTERS/Susan Watts/Pool

The New York City Department of Education announced Wednesday that all public school students, regardless of family income, will receive free lunch.

The program — called Free School Lunch For All — aligns with the start of the school year, and ends a feud between New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council members, Chalkbeat reported.

The de Blasio administration argued that the program could put Title I funds, which are federal dollars provided to low-income schools, at risk.

At New York City Public Schools, the largest district in the US with about 1.1 million students, nearly 800,000 students have been estimated to qualify for free lunch. But many don't fill out the proper forms and miss out on the program due to the stigmatization associated with qualifying, Chalkbeat reported.

The program aims to remove the barriers for all kids to receive access to lunch at school.

Accept our marketing cookies to access this content.

These cookies are currently disabled in your browser.

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

Sign up for free

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Share:
World Economic Forum logo

Forum Stories newsletter

Bringing you weekly curated insights and analysis on the global issues that matter.