"Extreme poverty" in the US is such a crazy low bar though. A huge portion of America is literally working poor. Not technically under any poverty bar, but that's not enough to pay rent and also buy enough food for everyone.

For those people, the $2 a day that school lunch costs (or even 50 cents for reduced price lunch) is literally too much money, because it is. So those kids go hungry. I knew plenty of those kids that all of you are insisting don't exist (for some reason) and no, the existing welfare is just not enough, even in an extremely low cost of living area, in a state with significant state level aid.

The bar for free school lunches in America isn't "extreme poverty". You've responding to HideousKojima's characterization of the program as though it is accurate, but he's wrong and if you're actually familiar with the subject matter you should have recognized that he's wrong.

Most working class families qualify for free or reduced price lunches. If you're at or below 130% of the poverty line your kids get free lunch. At or below 185% of the poverty line gets kids a reduced price lunch. How many children a family has is part of this calculation; the poverty line is set higher for larger families. This program spends something like 5 billion dollars a year giving lunches to tens of millions of kids. It's not a niche thing few qualify for. There are many schools where virtually every student is in the program.

Furthermore, schools will not allow kids to skip lunch. They are given lunch whether or not they have money and the matter is settled with their parents later. The few times I tried to skip lunch in school it turned into huge dramas and food was given to me even though I had chosen to not eat it.

Some of these programs require household application, which may be to high a barrier for some students.

That teacher's support might be vital to a hungry 8yo whose parents can't/won't/don't fill out the form?

Call CPS if it's that bad