this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2025
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A Boring Dystopia

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[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 week ago (3 children)

If you want to look at this situation from an economic point of view ..... what's cheaper?

Pay a kids lunch every day for about 12-14 years .... and for a growing kid, the price wouldn't be that much, especially if you are paying in bulk amounts for hundreds or thousands of kids.

or

Don't pay their lunch, let the parents go into debt, take the kids into foster care .... now you as the government have to pay for legal expenses to take the kid away, expenses to have police and social service workers to do the work, foster expenses to house the kid and care for them (now you are having to pay for every single meal for them for years), give up the kid once they become of age and go out on their own after foster care as a disillusioned, angry and frustrated young man or woman who will more than likely end up on the street dealing drugs, crime or prostitution ... who will then grow up causing or contributing to crime and increasing the costs of police, legal, emergency health care, security and penitentiary .... and chances are they will have children who will end up at school not being able to pay for their lunch

....

If you pay to help the kid when they are young, there is more of a chance they will grow up to be a contributing healthy member of society. If you don't they will become a lifelong burden on society and cause endless expenses that will be far more money than any school lunches you could have bought when they were ten years old.

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

If you pay to help the kid when they are young, there is more of a chance they will grow up to be a contributing healthy member of society.

Those in power do not want a contributing healthy member of society. They want malleable, docile workers that will do as they’re told and not challenge the system.

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[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/20/us/pennsylvania-school-lunch-debt-trnd

Unless this is happening again, this story is from 2019. Still bad, just not recent

[–] Sludgehammer@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

Yeah, it's from 2019. The original article the bitly link went to is gone but it's still on archive

I don't think there's any other country in the world that has such policies.

[–] doingthestuff@lemy.lol 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

My wife runs a school kitchen, a big school, 2k+ high schoolers and almost 20 staff. Her pay is actually terrible, but the job has good medical insurance and I'm self employed with no benefits so she's been sticking with it. Collecting debt is part of her job. They never withhold a basic meal (no extras if they have unpaid debt) but that meal gets added to their debt.

They don't threaten anything legal like in this story, but they will not give you your diploma or transfer your credits if you haven't paid your debt in full. We're in Ohio.

[–] Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 11 points 1 week ago (16 children)

Getting school lunches is so foreign to me, but then again people here in NL just bring home made sandwiches, which are generally cheaper to make than food like in the picture.

At least in the schools I went to when the teature noticed somebody didn't have lunch with them on a consistent basis they would ask what was wrong and give them food.

Some other kids just kept eating unhealthy food every day because the school was still selling that. Heck in my first highscool they sold candy every thursday or so. It was an interesting time.

[–] lambipapp@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago (19 children)

As a Swede i think your system in the Netherlands sounds so foreign. When I was in school we always had 2 hot meals to chose between and a 'salad bar's. All paid for by the tax system. No one should ever be forced to go hungry imo.

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[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (3 children)

If every American learned what citizens in other 1st world countries have that we don't, there would be a revolution tomorrow.

[–] destructdisc@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A lot of them know but choose to look away because "mUh FrEeDoM"

[–] zebidiah@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 week ago (3 children)

"Fuck free healthcare, education, food quality standards, safety regulations,y right to own guns is more important than all that, and fuck them (school shooting) kids"

Signed -america's "patriots"

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[–] muusemuuse@lemm.ee 9 points 1 week ago

Not wanting to feed children doesn’t seem very pro-life.

[–] Spitfire@pawb.social 7 points 1 week ago

Unfortunately nothing new. I remember as a kid that if you didn’t have money in your lunch account, your lunch was taken away and if you were lucky they’d have a peanut butter sandwich for you.

If you were in a negative balance, such as if your parents were unable to pay, then you’d also be restricted from certain activities and pressured to make your parents pay what was owed.

[–] Cocopanda@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

I’m from this region of Pennsylvania. Abuse and bullying is protected by the culture of this region. The sheriff’s office has done mass murders against strikers in the coal fields. 1860’s I believe. This guy stepped down. But his sentiment carries far in the community. It’s a bigoted hate filled hole.

A literal gun cult is financing far right radicals into local politics. A hate group is trying to force schools to out children who say they are gay. And YouTube protects their account where they post hours of hate content.

I worked with the president of the group before. He was fired from his job because he was accused of stealing $15,000.

[–] 21Cabbage@lemmynsfw.com 7 points 1 week ago

Grew up with lunch debt as a kid and that headline boils my blood in ways I probably shouldn't say out loud.

[–] BetaBlake@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

The same as debtors prison, how is that supposed to fix anything? Accomplishes literally nothing other than punishing people for being poor.

how about you start punishing companies for not paying people a livable wage?

[–] AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

And they have the nerve to ask why people aren't having kids anymore

[–] doc@fedia.io 5 points 1 week ago

That picture of the food is a damn feast compared to what actually gets served.

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