Big Beautiful Bill impacts school lunches in North Dakota
August 3, 2025
BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) - The Big Beautiful Bill plans to cut funding for a lot of programs to benefit workers and families making less than $50,000 per year, according to the White House’s website. But some of these cuts might limit access to programs like free lunch for low-income kids.
Recent research has shown that some students receive their healthiest meal at school.
“School meal programs are really important to the overall success of students, their overall academic achievement, and their student success, so it’s really important that students have access to healthy meals at school,” said Lynelle Johnson, Director of Child Nutrition & Food Distribution at the Department of Public Instruction.
But for some students, accessibility to these meals could be at risk, with SNAP funds being cut by $186 billion after the Big Beautiful Bill was signed into law.
In North Dakota, students are enrolled in schools that offer free or reduced meals. Of those, 26,000 are automatically enrolled in the program because of another benefit, like Medicaid, SNAP, or TANF. Because of these cuts, North Dakota legislators may be forced to make some hard decisions about who is eligible for these programs.
“Because fewer children would be eligible for SNAP, or Medicaid, or TANF, then they would not be automatically eligible for free school meals, and that would create an administrative burden on the school, asking them to fill out an application, and some of those students may also not qualify based on a paper application,” said Johnson.
The Department of Public Instruction is waiting for the funding cuts to go into effect to plan its next move.
“Right now, it’s just a wait and see, because it is a couple of years before a lot of these policies are implemented, so there won’t be an impact on our students during this next couple of school years, so really we’re just watching and waiting to see what happens,” said Johnson.
The bill will reduce SNAP funding by approximately 20 percent from 2025 to 2034.
