House WIC Cuts Would End Food Assistance for 200,000 to 350,000 Low-Income Women and Children

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3499&utm_source=twitter

By Zoë Neuberger and Robert Greenstein
Revised June 8, 2011

A large cut in the WIC nutrition program that the House Appropriations Committee approved last week would force WIC to turn away 200,000 to 350,000 eligible low-income women and young children next year. This cut, part of the 2012 appropriations bill that the Committee approved May 31, would break a 15-year commitment by Administrations and Congresses of both parties to provide enough WIC funding to serve all eligible women, infants, and children who apply.

The proposal is particularly striking given Republican insistence late last year on extending all of President Bush’s tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest households as well as Republican efforts of recent weeks to preserve lucrative tax breaks for oil companies at a time of huge company profits. The appropriations bill reduces WIC funding from $6.73 billion this year to $6.05 billion in 2012 — a cut of more than $650 million below the fiscal year 2011 level, which obviously is much less than the continuing cost of the high-end Bush tax cuts, oil company tax breaks, and various other write-offs for well-to-do taxpayers or powerful corporations.[1]

WIC — the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — provides nutritious foods, counseling on healthy eating, and health care referrals to roughly 9 million low-income pregnant and postpartum women, infants, and children under age five who are at nutritional risk. An extensive body of research documents WIC’s high degree of effectiveness in improving birth outcomes, reducing child anemia, and improving participants’ nutrition and health.

Unlike other key low-income nutrition programs, such as SNAP (formerly called food stamps) and school lunches, eligible WIC recipients have no entitlement to benefits. If funds are insufficient, eligible applicants are put on a waiting list for services.


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