New Poll Shows Overwhelming Support for School Breakfast for All Maryland Students

76% of voters support providing free school breakfast to all K-12 Maryland students

Three other states, including Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas have recently implemented free school breakfast for all students.

ANNAPOLIS, Md., Dec. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- A supermajority of Maryland voters support providing free school breakfast to all Maryland students, according to a new poll released today by Solving Hunger, a project of Tusk Philanthropies.

"With so much nutrition uncertainty at the federal level, states are taking matters into their own hands, and as the next legislative session kicks off in Annapolis, we urge all elected officials to step up. If Arkansas can feed all of their kids breakfast, surely Maryland can do what's right and do what is proven to work and feed its own," said Lisa Quigley, Director of Solving Hunger.

In the survey of 600 registered voters conducted between December 4-8, 2025 by Hart research, more than three-quarters of voters favored providing free breakfast to all K-12 students in Maryland. 60% of voters strongly support this proposal and 62% of voters said they would be more likely to vote for a state legislator that voted for this proposal. On the contrary, 56% of voters would be less likely to vote for a legislator that voted against this proposal.

Free breakfast for students is such a popular policy that even as voters were read criticisms of the program during the survey, support only fell by 5 points. The survey also revealed the strongest argument in favor of school meals — that the current eligibility level is exceedingly low and wealthy school districts do not offer free meals to students in need:

"Given low federal eligibility standards, many students who don't qualify for free school meals now come from families who are still struggling. To qualify for free meals for this school year in Maryland, a family of four has to make less than $42,000 a year. When grocery bills are so high, many families making more than $42,000 a year are still struggling. And in many of the so-called wealthy school districts across Maryland who don't currently offer universal free school meals, there are still kids who don't come from wealthy families, meaning those kids are going hungry."

Three other states, including Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas have implemented free school breakfast for all students. Nine states, including Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, California, Colorado, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont and Michigan are all providing free school meals, both breakfast and lunch. The cost of the proposal in Maryland is $36 million annually, with the federal government already paying the lion's share of the school breakfast and lunch programs.

To learn more, visit https://solvinghungermd.com

About Solving Hunger Maryland
Solving Hunger Maryland, along with Solving Hunger, a project of Tusk Philanthropies, is dedicated to addressing food insecurity through expansion of school meals in states. We are committed to getting food to kids, many of whom rely on school meals as their primary source of daily nutrition. Solving Hunger Maryland is on a mission to educate the public and pass state funding to increase access to school meals in Maryland, starting with universal school breakfast.

CONTACT: [email protected]

SOURCE Solving Hunger