Sponsors (99)
Official title: To amend the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 and the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act to make breakfasts and lunches free for all children, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 13, 2026 by Ilhan Omar · Last progress May 13, 2026
The bill greatly expands free school meals and protections—improving child nutrition, reducing stigma, and simplifying eligibility—but does so at materially higher fiscal and administrative cost and risks uneven or insufficient funding for higher‑cost districts and short‑term burdens on schools and state agencies.
Students in participating schools (including during summer/after‑school and in eligible juvenile detention centers) will receive free breakfasts and lunches, removing paid/reduced‑price distinctions and increasing meal access for children and youth.
Schools and meal providers gain more predictable federal reimbursements through set national base rates (e.g., $3.28 for breakfast, $5.42 for lunch) with automatic CPI-based indexing, improving budget planning.
Students and families are protected from debt collection and debt-based penalties by prohibiting denial of program participation and establishing a federal reimbursement program to address delinquent meal debt, reducing stigma and financial pressure on families.
Taxpayers, federal and state budgets face substantially higher costs because the bill expands universal free meals, eliminates paid/reduced categories, and funds delinquent debt reimbursements.
Many school districts risk being underfunded because a single national average payment and CPI-Food-Away-From-Home indexing (plus annual rounding down) may not reflect local meal cost variations or school food input cost increases.
State agencies and school food authorities will face increased administrative burdens and transitional costs for new certification, data collection, system updates, and program changes.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Sets new national per‑meal federal rates, makes participating schools provide free breakfasts/lunches to students, bans meal debt collection, and changes how low‑income students are counted for Title I and related programs.
Makes major changes to federal school meal and related education programs by setting new national per-meal payment rates for school breakfast and lunch, simplifying eligibility so participating schools provide free meals to students, banning debt collection and “breakfast shaming,” creating a small bonus payment for meals using state‑certified locally sourced farm products, and updating how schools count low‑income students for Title I and college aid programs. It also shifts certain program rules, privacy protections, and statutory cross‑references across child nutrition, Food and Nutrition Act, and Higher Education Act provisions, with most changes taking effect one year after enactment and initial per‑meal rates phased in July 1, 2026 with annual CPI indexing.