Free Lunch Legislation Collapsed on a Simple Point: Most Kids Already Qualify
In Nevada, free school lunch started as a legislative debate and became a campaign issue.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which sends money to the states to pay for school meals, dropped its household income rules during the COVID pandemic. That allowed Nevada to offer free meals to every public school student. The USDA income rules returned in 2022 and again limited free and reduced-price meals mainly to low-income households. About 81.5% of Nevada public school students still qualified. The remaining 20% pay or bring their own lunches. Nevada used leftover federal COVID relief money to keep universal free meals going through the 2024. When that money ran out, the state had to decide whether to use general-fund money to keep feeding every student or rely only on what the USDA pays under the income rules.
In 2023, the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed a bill to spend about $43 million for another year of universal free meals. Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) vetoed it. He said more than 80% of students already qualify for a subsidized lunch through the USDA program and that districts should return to pre-pandemic rules that prioritize low-income households. Democrats tried to revive statewide free meals in 2025. That effort also failed.
Democratic gubernatorial challenger Aaron Ford has accused the governor of leaving schoolchildren hungry. Lombardo’s campaign and office say that is false, and that Ford is using the end of a temporary COVID program as a campaign tactic.
Nevada has the second-highest share of public school students eligible for a free or reduced-price lunch. Mississippi is first at 99.7%. New Mexico is third at 75.2%. The lowest shares are in Montana, New Hampshire, and Delaware. The national rate is 53.3%. About 22.1 million students received a free or reduced-price lunch in 2025.
