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Comment by zamadatix | Hacker News Reader

I was curious what a significant percentage might be as it just feels odd at first glance that a large percentage of the US population would rather children go hungry if they can't pay for lunch at school. About the worst stat I could come up with was that 20% opposed extension of universal free breakfast and lunch to all students. Of course that 20% is largely in opposition to the universal part more than wanting the children unable to pay to go hungry. In all it's surprising there is any single digit percentage that would oppose this but it disagrees with what most would expect in terms of numbers to a significant percentage holding this view. Doubly so when the comparison provided is a ~35% viewpoint (percentage varies depending on how you frame and measure the question).

Another interesting stat I found along the way was more children were receiving free or reduced lunch than not even prior to the pandemic.

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The percentage is high enough that it’s difficult to enact free lunch programs.

Can't even enact free free lunch programs:

https://apnews.com/article/states-rejecting-federal-funds-su...

It's difficult to enact the programs because people disagree on how they are run. All students or some students? What's the bar on the latter? How is it funded? Should it be a federally organized program or should the states lead how they do their own? Should it come with a mandate of food healthiness, what's that bar if so? Is it a school only supplemental program or should it be a change to a general welfare program (the latter having a whole set of debate how it should be done if its own)?

Very low on the list of reasons it's difficult is the percentage of those just plain not interested in the idea. It may seem silly ("we all agree no kid should go hungry at school so why haven't we done it universally") but picking that one reason out of the hat and holding it out as why isn't helping anything.

From what I can tell a lot of it comes down to whether someone cares more about making sure that everyone who needs help gets it or cares more about making sure that no one who doesn't need help gets it.

Funding is finite. Someone who doesn't need a benefit and receives it can be taking that benefit away from someone else. If you turn up at a food bank when you don't need to you're taking food out of someone else's mouth.

It costs more to determine who should receive the benefit than to simply provide it for everyone. Who gives a shit if a rich kid gets a free school lunch? They have to be at school. Feeding everyone should be a cost of the education system, the same way keeping the lights on and the temperature moderate is. Or should kids start having to pay for the light above their desk? For each drink at the water fountain? Maybe we can use cameras and some AI to tally up the expected utilities bill for each student and send that to the parents.

Rich kids can bring their own lights. /s

I've known people who care more about preventing undeserving people from receiving help even if the cost of enforcement is greater than the cost of abuse.

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