SCHLLUNCH is a 5-digit numeric variable

99999 = NIU

Description

SCHLLUNCH reports the family market value of school lunches. "Family market value" refers to the total monetary value of complete lunches provided by schools which were eaten by persons aged 5-18 in a given family within the household. All family members will have the same SCHLLUNCH value.

Users should note that SCHLLUNCH does not attempt to account for school closures during 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. An adjusted calculation of school lunch values that takes into account school closures and pandemic benefits in this period for the SPM family unit is available in SPMLUNCH in the 2021 and 2022 ASEC files.

Comparability

In some cases where a household contained multiple families, and only one of the families included children, SCHLLUNCH values were assigned to members of the primary family instead of the family they actually belong to. This appears to be an error, but the values are still valid as they reflect the SCHLLUNCH values of all children in the household.

Otherwise, aside from the effects of inflation, SCHLLUNCH is comparable across years.

Universe

Flags

Unharmonized Variables

• UH_FMVSL_A1