The Department of Agriculture is seeking over $1 billion through the appropriations process to avoid risking the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) benefits of 2 million mothers and children.
While speaking on a White House Regional press call Thursday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the previous continuing resolutions approved by Congress led USDA, states and WIC beneficiaries to “spend current funding actually at a faster rate than Congress has provided funding in order to be able to serve everyone who is eligible for the first half of this fiscal year, or at least through March of 2024.”
Congressional Democrats sent a letter earlier this week to House and Senate leaders asking for any final appropriations package to fully fund the WIC program for fiscal year 2024 to “avert disastrous participation or benefit cuts.” Their letter cites the Biden administration’s request made in September to provide $1.4 billion in emergency funding for WIC.
Vilsack explained because Congress hasn’t provided the funds to cover the program once those resources run out, benefits could dry up one and a half months before the end of the fiscal year, creating at least a $1 billion shortfall.
“The funding we need will ultimately require a full year appropriation, which we hope to get at some point, but by then the impact of cuts would be magnified because USDA and states will have absorbed all the resources available in the final months of the fiscal year,” Vilsack said.
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Waiting lists would be required to establish who can get the dwindling funds, Vilsack explained. Such lists would first eliminate funding for non-breastfeeding, postpartum women, followed by children ages one to five years old without high-risk medical issues. If that doesn’t satisfy the shortfall, pregnant and breastfeeding women and infants who do not have high-risk medical issues risk losing benefits.
“Given the size of the funding shortfall, it’s likely that waiting lists would stretch across all, and let me emphasize all, participating categories affecting both new applicants and mothers,” Vilsack warned.
Paul Throne, director of Washington State Department of Health’s Office of Nutrition Services, said he and other state WIC directors are seeing rising caseloads. After nearly four years of rising caseloads, he projects he’ll soon be asking USDA for more help to feed his state’s 131,000 participants. Other states have already had to ask USDA for extra funds to provide food for everyone who wants to participate.
“I’m afraid that this year I may no longer have the budget to serve everyone,” Throne said.
“What we do in WIC in the first few years of a child’s life sets the court for the future, which is not just a way to put food on the table for families who have the greatest need," he added. "The WIC program is the gateway to health care for serious conditions like diabetes and pregnancy complications.”
Washington estimates WIC helps save the lives of almost 90 infants every year.
“But with rising caseloads, increased food costs and level funding, WIC is a ship heading toward an iceberg,” Throne said. “We face an unprecedented need for more funding to keep this program working for everyone who needs it.”
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