For those people, the $2 a day that school lunch costs (or even 50 cents for reduced price lunch) is literally too much money, because it is. So those kids go hungry. I knew plenty of those kids that all of you are insisting don't exist (for some reason) and no, the existing welfare is just not enough, even in an extremely low cost of living area, in a state with significant state level aid.
Most working class families qualify for free or reduced price lunches. If you're at or below 130% of the poverty line your kids get free lunch. At or below 185% of the poverty line gets kids a reduced price lunch. How many children a family has is part of this calculation; the poverty line is set higher for larger families. This program spends something like 5 billion dollars a year giving lunches to tens of millions of kids. It's not a niche thing few qualify for. There are many schools where virtually every student is in the program.
Furthermore, schools will not allow kids to skip lunch. They are given lunch whether or not they have money and the matter is settled with their parents later. The few times I tried to skip lunch in school it turned into huge dramas and food was given to me even though I had chosen to not eat it.
That teacher's support might be vital to a hungry 8yo whose parents can't/won't/don't fill out the form?
In my area it is a school policy that a kid would not be denied food even if they had no money in their account - and every place I lived had organizations that would eagerly step up to address such a problem if and when it manifested.
For what it is worth, during COVID and a few years after, in my state every kid got free lunch in school regardless of their income.
I met the teacher following a photograph who tried to document the opioid epidemic, crica 2018 (we were young and naive, video is probably the only communication medium that's worth anything when you're independent, photography is harder), while I kayaked/hiked/rafted/climbed everywhere I could for the two month I was there. I think she work for a magazine now. And I'm still convinced West Virginia is only lacking a huge lake or a sea to be the best place on earth.
it is very uncommon to have children go hungry in America, because food is plentiful, and numerous charitable organizations would eagerly step in.
Bad parenting may happen everywhere in the world.
For some brownie points, googling seems to indicate that Germany has a hunger crisis:
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/09/world/germany-food-b...
