Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar push for permanent free school lunch

• House and Senate Democrats introduced a bill to make a pandemic-era free school meals program permanent.
• Bernie Sanders and Ilhan Omar are among those urging to extend the program for all children grades K-12.
• The USDA recently extended the program through the spring of 2022.

The US Department of Agriculture announced on April 20 that it would extend the pandemic-era free school lunch program through spring of 2022. But some Democrats say that extension isn't enough, and they want free school meals to be a permanent option to combat child hunger.

On Friday, Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Gwen Moore of Wisconsin introduced the Universal School Meals Program Act of 2021, which would permanently provide free breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack to all school children regardless of income while eliminating school meal debt. The USDA estimated that 12 million children lived in food insecure homes at the height of the pandemic, and offering free meals has been instrumental in fighting child hunger.

"In the richest country in the world, it is an outrage that millions of children struggle with hunger every day," Sanders said in a statement. "Every child deserves a quality education free of hunger. What we've seen during this pandemic is that a universal approach to school meals works. We cannot go backwards."

The bill summary said 30 million children in the country rely on free or reduced-price school lunches, and if the pandemic waivers expire, many students from houses with incomes just 130% above the poverty line will not be able to receive free school meals.

Here are other benefits of implementing the bill, according to its summary:

• Ends school lunch shaming, in which kids are publicly shamed for school meal debt;
• Increases the reimbursement rate for school meals to $2.72 for breakfast and $3.81 for lunch and dinner;
• Provides a $0.30 incentive for schools to procure local foods;
• Reimburses schools for all delinquent school meal debt;
• Provides summer meals to all children and an additional $60 per month for low-income children;
• And strengthens and expands the Child and Adult Care Food Program.

Studies have shown that access to a free breakfast have improved attendance rates for children and allowed them to perform better in school. Teachers even ranked hunger as a top three priority in children's health.

The Biden administration also provided $12 billion in nutritional assistance as part of its $1.9 trillion stimulus law approved last month, which included a 15% boost to food-stamp benefits among many other provisions.

"75% of school districts have school meal debt," Omar wrote on Twitter on Friday. "No child should be forced into debt because they can't afford to eat."