Cost of School Meals and Households’ Difficulty Paying for Expenses: Evidence from the Household Pulse Survey

School meals are typically served to children for free, at a reduced price, or at full price, depending on their household’s income. In response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a waiver allowing schools to provide meals for free to all students regardless of household income in the 2020–21 and 2021–22 school years. This waiver expired on June 30, 2022, leading some advocates and policymakers to express concern that the reintroduction of prices for school meals could make it difficult for some households to meet their other expenses. However, it is unclear whether having to pay for school meals makes it difficult for households to meet their other spending needs. Using new data from the Household Pulse Survey, this economic brief finds that overall, nearly one-third of households with children aged 5–17 that paid for school meals in December 2022 reported that doing so made it difficult for them to pay for other usual expenses. The share reporting the same among households with children aged 5–17 and incomes below 225 percent of the Federal poverty level, and among non-White households with children aged 5–17, was higher than the overall share.