First Jill Carey and her children got sick. Then they got hungry.
When the family came down with Covid-19 in early December, Carey’s son and daughter had to isolate at their home in Pennsylvania for two weeks. That meant missing school — and the reduced-price lunches the kids rely on.
America’s low-income families, already burdened with surging food inflation and the pandemic’s lasting economic blow, are now facing a new set of challenges when it comes to feeding their kids. Intermittent, often unpredictable, interruptions to schooling can also mean losing access to the free and subsidized school meals that have long been a cornerstone of U.S. efforts to combat child hunger.