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universal school meals
Democrats Must Go Big; the Minnesota Miracle Shows Them How
The Minnesota Miracle is a slew of major progressive policies that improved the lives of all types of people in the state; here’s how to take it national.
Aug 21, 2024
There’s a lot to choose from in the race to define Minnesota Gov. and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, and it seems like the Walz well will never run dry. He’s an additional jolt of energy for Democrats who felt hopeless about U.S. President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. He’s a former small-town high school football coach with the potential to be a champion for forgotten small-town Americans. He’s folksy with a ton of Midwestern dad energy, and seems to charm nearly everyone he meets.
For us, the bigger picture isn’t about who Walz is, but about how he will govern. Because while he was governor in 2018, it was organizers and advocates for working families who pulled off the “Minnesota Miracle,” also called the “Minnesota Model.” Apply that model to the country as a whole, and you get a road map for winning popular progressive policies under tough conditions—and that’s exactly what Democrats need to defeat former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and to keep winning beyond November.
On paper, the Minnesota Miracle is a slew of major progressive policies that improved the lives of all types of people in the state. It came together from decades of organizing by community and labor groups who in turn organized Walz, paving the way for these wins and forming an inside-outside coalition of governance to make sure that the legislature followed through on their promises. As leaders of the Working Families Party, a political party that does just that, we know how well it works.
By following the leadership of communities and organized labor, Democrats can rebuild the coalition needed to win power—and hold power.
The Miracle’s agenda included popular policies like paid family and medical leave, a child tax credit, making breakfast and lunch free for all students, allowing undocumented immigrants to access driver’s licenses, and making record investments in public schools..
That’s a strong platform to run a presidential ticket on. Not only are these policies immensely popular, they’re popular among the coalition that Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz need to win in November. Every policy in the Minnesota Model has been the subject of a major poll—if not dozens or hundreds. Time and time again, they poll well across race, place, and class.
Much of our work focuses on electing leaders who fight for these popular policies, and there’s a growing contingent. But the majority of Democrats tend to balk at these issues, especially when trying to placate powerful corporate interests. But Walz could help break that trend. Many Democratic leaders balk at bold policies under the best conditions, but Walz and the organizers who won the Miracle did it despite the odds, turning a tight Democratic majority into concrete policy wins. Instead of going small, they seized the moment. As Tim Walz himself said, “You don’t win elections to bank politics capital. You win elections to burn political capital and improve lives.”
Imagine that approach on the federal level. Democrats can go big, opening the door to bold policies that meet the needs of this moment. By running on a proven popular agenda like the Minnesota Miracle, Democrats can win by big margins. And, perhaps most importantly, by following the leadership of communities and organized labor, Democrats can rebuild the coalition needed to win power—and hold power.
There are big lessons to be learned here, if we choose to. The Minnesota coalition did it six years ago, and we can do it again, on the federal level. But only if we organize like our future depends on it to beat Trump and flip the house.
We’re far from starting from scratch. The Working Families Party, Center for Popular Democracy Action, People’s Action, and countless other allied groups have spent decades paving the way for Democrats to run on these issues, just like organizers in Minnesota did. And while electoral wins are just the beginning of the fight, real change happens when our communities have governing power.
If we can build a multiracial working-class coalition to defeat Trump and his MAGA movement at every level of government, that same coalition can fight for and win more together than we ever have.
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'Jarring Wake-Up Call': Hunger Surges in US After Food Aid Cuts
"Effective federal public policies over the previous few years were spectacularly successful in stemming U.S. hunger, but as many of those policies have been reversed, hunger has again soared," said one expert.
Nov 22, 2023
Highlighting the end of a yearslong trend of declining hunger in the United States due largely to federal policies like the expanded Child Tax Credit and universal school meals, a report published Wednesday details how the expiration of these programs has fueled a resurgence in food insecurity.
Hunger Free America's (HFA) 2023 National Hunger Survey Report found that "the number of Americans without enough food over a seven-day period was an average of 40% higher in September and October of 2023 than in September and October of 2021."
"Over that time period, the number of people without enough food increased from 19.7 million to 27.8 million nationwide," HFA noted, attributing the rise in hunger to the expiration of the expanded Child Tax Credit and universal school meals.
"Many federal benefit increases have either gone away entirely, or are being ramped down, even as prices for food, rent, healthcare, and fuel continue to soar," the advocacy group added.
Among the report's other findings:
- The states with the highest rates of food-insecure children were Delaware (21.4%), Nebraska (21.0%), Texas (20.7%), Georgia (20.0%), Kentucky (19.7%), and Louisiana (19.7%);
- Nationally, 9.1% of employed adults in the U.S. lived in food-insecure households during the three-year time period;
- The states with the highest rates of food insecurity among employed adults were Arkansas (13.7%), Texas (13.4%), Louisiana (12.5%), South Carolina (12.5%), and Oklahoma (12.4%);
- 7.6% of older Americans, defined as people 60 years and older, lived in food-insecure households;
- Louisiana had the highest rate of food insecurity among older Americans at 13.9%, followed by Mississippi (12.7%), the District of Columbia (12.6%), West Virginia (11.0%), and Oklahoma (10.4%); and
- The states with the lowest rates of food insecurity were New Hampshire (6.1%), Minnesota (7.3%), Vermont (7.7%), Colorado (8.4%), and North Dakota (8.6%).
"This report should be a jarring wake-up call for our federal, state, and local leaders," HFA CEO Joel Berg said in a statement.
The new HFA report follows federal data released in November showing the U.S. child poverty rate more than doubled in 2022 compared to the previous year, thanks in large part to the expiration of the expanded Child Tax Credit. Under the policy—part of the American Rescue Plan signed into law by President Joe Biden in March 2021—eligible families received up to $300 per child each month.
However, the program expired at the end of 2021 as congressional Republicans and right-wing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia opposed its extension. Manchin infamously argued that parents would use the money to buy drugs instead of food for their children.
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans last year blocked the extension of a pandemic-era policy under which public schools offered free breakfast and lunch to tens of millions of children.
"Effective federal public policies over the previous few years were spectacularly successful in stemming U.S. hunger, but as many of those policies have been reversed, hunger has again soared," Berg said on Wednesday. "At exactly the moment when so many Americans are in desperate need of relief, many of the federally funded benefits increases, such as the Child Tax Credit and universal school meals, have expired, due mostly to opposition from conservatives in Congress."
"Just as no one should be surprised if drought increases when water is taken away, no one should be shocked that when the government takes away food, as well as money to buy food, hunger rises," Berg added. "Our political leaders must act to raise wages and provide a strong safety net, so we can finally end U.S. hunger and ensure that all Americans have access to adequate, healthy food."
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Senate Dems Want to Cancel All Student Lunch Debt—A 'Term So Absurd That It Shouldn't Even Exist'
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman said the aim of the bill is to "stop humiliating kids and penalizing hunger."
Sep 25, 2023
As children across the United States have started a new academic year over the past month, many families have had to contend with federal lawmakers' refusal to guarantee universal free meals and the resulting "lunch shaming"—which three U.S. Senate Democrats hope to partially combat with new legislation to cancel student lunch debt nationwide.
"'School lunch debt' is a term so absurd that it shouldn't even exist," Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) declared in a statement Monday. "That's why I'm proud to introduce this bill to cancel the nation's student meal debt and stop humiliating kids and penalizing hunger."
"It's time to come together and stop playing political games with Americans' access to food," he added. "September is Hunger Action Month and I'm proud to be introducing this bill to help working families now, while we work to move our other priorities to combat food insecurity in our nation."
Fetterman—who chairs the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry's Subcommittee on Food and Nutrition, Specialty Crops, Organics, and Research—is leading the fight for the School Lunch Debt Cancellation Act with Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).
"No child in Rhode Island—or anywhere in America—should be penalized for not being able to afford school lunch. It's that simple," asserted Whitehouse. "Our legislation will eliminate lunch debt in schools, supporting every child's access to a healthy meal and positioning them for long-term success."
Welch agreed, saying: "Our students shouldn't have to worry about how they're paying for lunch—full stop. I'm proud to partner with my colleagues Sen. Fetterman and Whitehouse on this commonsense bill, and urge my colleagues to stand with us."
Congress initially responded to the Covid-19 pandemic by enabling public schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to all 50 million children nationwide, but Republicans blocked the continuation that policy last year. Instead, lawmakers passed the Keep Kids Fed Act, a bipartisan compromise that increased federal reimbursement rates for programs serving low-income students. However, as Common Dreams reported in January, only around a quarter of districts that responded to a survey from the School Nutrition Association said those levels are sufficient, and 99.2% had concerns about raised rates expiring.
Further burdening American families trying to feed children amid food companies' price gouging, congressional Republicans and right-wing Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) also killed the pandemic-era expansion of the child tax credit—a move that contributed to the U.S. child poverty rate more than doubling in 2022 compared with the previous year, according to data released this month.
"Prior to the pandemic, some schools had resorted to tactics that embarrassed kids, such as stamping their hands to remind parents of unpaid bills and substituting cold cheese sandwiches for hot meals," Civil Eatsreported Monday. "Sometimes meals were thrown out in front of the children. And while experts say that fewer districts have resumed these practices—often dubbed 'lunch shaming'—they haven't gone away entirely either."
Crystal FitzSimons, director of school and out-of-school time programs at the Research and Action Center (FRAC), told the outlet, "Schools, families, and states really did not want to go back to having the complicated school nutrition operations where some kids have access to free meals and other kids do not, and they have to struggle with unpaid debt."
The families of almost half a million food insecure children in Pennsylvania collectively owe nearly $80 million in public school lunch debt, according to Fetterman's office. Nationally, more than 30 million kids can't afford their school meals and the total debt is $262 million annually.
California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Vermont have all guaranteed universal free school meals, and Michigan and Nevada have programs in place for the 2023-24 school year. While lawmakers in other states are working to pass similar bills, advocates have called for federal legislation to ensure all schoolchildren are fed.
In addition to the new debt cancellation bill, Fetterman is among the co-sponsors of the Universal School Meals Program Act, reintroduced in May by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).
"It is downright cruel that we are letting our children in America go hungry," Fetterman said at the time. "No child in America should be worried about if they are going to be able to get breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I am proud and honored to co-sponsor this bill that will finally make sure that our children are fed."
This post has been updated with the latest details about programs in Michigan and Nevada.
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