Number of Ohio students in school-lunch aid program skyrockets

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

New data from the Ohio Department of Education shows the proportion of students getting free and reduced-price school lunches through a federal program has reached a record high.

The proportion of students who get the tax-funded benefit has risen nearly 50 percent in the past five years, and four of every 10 Ohio students are now part of the lunch program for low-income children, The Columbus Dispatch reported Sunday.

Students can qualify for free lunches if their household income is under 130 percent of the 2009 federal poverty level, which means a top income of about $28,600 for a family of four. Families earning up to 185 percent of the poverty level can get reduced prices for student lunches.

The lunch aid program is considered a poverty indicator and has long been used in rural and urban districts, but some of the biggest jumps have happened in suburbs where poverty wasn’t widely seen.

“We look at the economic information and employment numbers, and this is the aftershock,” said Amy Swanson, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Voices for Ohio Children. “This is when reality set in. Poverty is hitting the suburbs in a way that we probably haven’t seen in a long time.”

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.