NEW JERSEY — Every public school student in New Jersey would receive free breakfast regardless of household income under proposed legislation announced this week by Assembly Speaker Craig J. Coughlin.
Coughlin, D-Middlesex, said he plans to introduce a bill requiring all public schools to provide breakfast at no cost to every enrolled student, eliminating income eligibility requirements and other barriers that can prevent children from receiving school meals.
The proposal is part of Coughlin’s broader legislative efforts to address childhood hunger and expand access to food assistance programs throughout the state.
“Studies have shown that childhood hunger impedes learning and can cause lifelong health problems. While New Jersey schools have made great strides over the years in serving breakfast to more students to give them a strong start to the day, we know there are still thousands of eligible children who do not participate in free school breakfast programs,” said Speaker Coughlin (D-Middlesex). “Sometimes there can be a stigma to receiving free meals or difficulties in filling out paperwork to participate, so we need to remove all of these barriers to make sure that no student goes hungry.”
Under the proposed legislation, public schools would be required to offer breakfast to all students without charging families, regardless of whether they qualify for federal meal assistance.
The measure would build on previous changes to New Jersey’s school meal programs, including expanding eligibility for free breakfast and lunch to families earning up to 225% of the federal poverty level.
The state has also eliminated reduced-price lunch costs, strengthened protections against meal shaming and punishment over unpaid meal balances, and taken steps to connect eligible families with school nutrition programs.
Coughlin announced the proposal during his keynote address at the New Jersey Office of the Food Security Advocate’s annual Garden State Conference on Food Security: Setting a Table for All, for Always.
During the conference, Coughlin also announced plans to introduce the Anti-Fraud Efficient Income Verification Act, which would change how New Jersey verifies eligibility for assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP, and Medicaid.
The proposed legislation would require employers to report employees’ wages and hours worked after each pay period instead of quarterly.
According to Coughlin, the change is intended to simplify the eligibility verification process, reduce paperwork and shorten delays in updating income information.
The proposal also seeks to prevent eligible recipients from unnecessarily losing benefits as new federal requirements take effect under the law known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
“With the new federal requirements, the last thing we should be doing is making it harder for people who qualify for assistance to maintain access to the programs they need,” added Speaker Coughlin.
Earlier this year, legislation sponsored by Coughlin was signed into law to make it easier for SNAP and Medicaid recipients to use volunteer hours toward meeting expanded federal work requirements.
