USDA to ban online transaction fees on school lunch payments for low-income families
A federal policy will prohibit schools from charging transaction fees to low-income families when they make electronic deposits into their lunch accounts.
A new federal rule will prohibit schools from charging low-income students transaction fees when their families electronically deposit funds into their lunch accounts.
The policy was announced Friday by the Agriculture Department, which administers the national program that serves billions of student lunches and breakfasts every year.
The ban on the “junk fees,” which will go into effect in the 2027-28 academic year, applies to students eligible for free and reduced-price school meals — those whose annual household incomes are 185% or less of the federal poverty level, which equals $57,720 maximum for a family of four.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a government agency that aims to ensure fairness in the marketplace, estimated in a report in July that school meal payment processors collect more than $100 million in transaction fees a year.
The report said the fees disproportionately burden lower-income households, which tend to make smaller, more frequent electronic deposits into their children’s accounts.
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