Understanding the New School Lunch Act

Officially titled the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010, the latest renewal of the school lunch program was recently passed by the Senate and is waiting of full passage from Congress. Like its predecessors, the bill includes a wide variety of programs that address domestic hunger, primarily through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or "food stamps"), school lunches, and the Women Infants and Children program (WIC). While the breadth of this bill makes discussing all of the programs difficult, its important to highlight a few major changes.



It is the first non-inflationary funding increase to the school lunch program since 1973.
While generally seen as a necessary for improvement, this measure has still been a bit controversial. In order for this act to remain deficit neutral, the money for this increase is being taken out of SNAP. Based on current projections, it shouldn't have a significant impact. That is, relying on decreases in unemployment, SNAP's funding needs should decrease as the funds move over to the school lunch programs. We'll see whether this plays out correctly, but being deficit neutral was probably essential to the bill being passed through unanimous consent rather than with a formal vote, difficult to attain in such a busy legislative period.