The United States spends more money on school lunches than any other country.
Posted by The Joe Rogan Experience, Checked
- Sources
- 7 context
- Said
- 1 time·
- Confidence
- 35%
The Joe Rogan ExperienceNov 6, 2026
None of the sources compares total school lunch spending across countries, so the claim that the US spends more than any other country cannot be graded in either direction.
This claim is about the present, so it is judged as of the day it was checked.
What was said
… You look at a school, it's pizza and fried chicken nuggets. I mean, it's disgusting. It's a national embarrassment, what's happening with school lunches. It's not even a money issue. We spend more than any other country on school lunches. You compare us to Japan; it's a national embarrassment. And the industry comes in on this issue that's central to Bobby Kennedy, central to a political coalition so popular and and impactful, quite frankly, and they say it's going to hurt our sales. …
The Joe Rogan Experience · · from the transcriptPost →What we found
Context. The US federal school lunch program is estimated to cost $17.4 billion in 2025, and US federal spending on the NSLP reached $14.4 billion in FY 2019.[3][4]
Context. WFP estimates global school meal investment at roughly $65.6 to $84 billion in 2024, based on reports from 116 to 173 countries, but the snippet gives no country-by-country breakdown that would rank the US.[5]
Context. The OECD and FactCheck.org show the US ranks high on total education spending per pupil, but these figures exclude school lunch as a separate category and do not rank the US on meals.[1][2][6]
Context. A global survey gives average per-child school food budgets of about USD 400 in high-income countries and USD 382 in Europe/Central Asia/North America, but does not break out the US or rank it against other countries' totals.[7]
Context. The claim departs from nothing in the passage; the speaker's remark is anecdotal and sits inside a broader rhetorical point about school food quality rather than a documented spending comparison.
Sources
7 sources: 2 fact-checkers, 2 primary, 3 not rated
- 1No, U.S. education isn't worst among developed countriespolitifact.com · fact-checker · cited for: context
- 2Trump Wrong About U.S. Rank in Education Spending and Outcomesfactcheck.org · fact-checker · cited for: context
- 3Cutting School Food Subsidiesfiles.eric.ed.gov · primary source · cited for: context
- 4The National School Lunch Program: Background, Trends ...ers.usda.gov · primary source · cited for: context
- 5Chapter 1 School meal programmes in 2024: scale, coverage and ...docs.wfp.org · not rated · cited for: context
- 6How much is spent per student on educational institutions?: Education at a Glance 2022oecd.org · not rated · cited for: context
- 72021 GLOBAL SURVEY OF SCHOOL MEAL PROGRAMSgcnf.org · not rated · cited for: context
Where this claim was made
Said in 1 published post
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