High costs land on school cafeteria trays....Student meal prices up by as much as 50 percent

[marmar]

MSNBC:



High costs land on school cafeteria trays
Rising food, fuel to drive up student meal prices by as much as 50 percent
Alex Johnson
Reporter



When America’s schoolchildren return to class in the fall, they will learn a painful lesson in economics: Higher food and fuel prices are forcing up the price of school breakfasts and lunches across the country, by as much as 50 percent in some districts.

The cost of staples that make up the backbone of school meal programs has soared in the past year, far outstripping federal subsidies. While inflation has driven up the price of milk by 12 percent, cheese by 15 percent and bread by 17 percent, the National School Lunch Program has increased what it pays local school districts to feed 30.1 million schoolchildren by only 3 percent.

Even at $8.2 billion a year, the federal subsidy “hasn’t kept up with rising food costs, with rising labor costs, fuel costs, benefits costs, even,” said Erik Peterson, a spokesman for the School Nutrition Association, a nonprofit foundation representing school food workers nationwide. “All those costs are adding up.”

The math is plain: About half of schoolchildren receive free lunches. On average, the cheapest of those lunches now costs $2.66 to prepare, the School Nutrition Association calculated. But the federal subsidy for a free lunch is only $2.47. That means schools lose at least 19 cents on every one of the 15 million free lunches served every day. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25011096/

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Let them eat ketchup. Smirk." - Republicons

[no_hypocrisy]

2. "Hot lunch" cost 25 cents from first grade to fifth grade. When it doubled in

sixth grade, there was pandemonium. Little did we know.

And btw, a cup of milk in school cost 2 cents. And this was just the sixties.