Off the Charts Blog | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Update April 11: The paper this post is based on has been updated and can be found here.

The Office of Management and Budget has now calculated how the “sequestration” budget cuts will affect WIC — the highly effective nutrition program that serves roughly 9 million low-income women and children — and here’s what we’ve learned:  575,000 to 750,000 eligible low-income women and children will be turned away by the end of the fiscal year if sequestration, which took effect on March 1, remains in place.  (Our new estimates of the numbers of women and children affected differ slightly from our earlier estimates because OMB has now calculated the exact percentage of the funding cut.)

Under sequestration, WIC faces a $333 million funding cut compared to the level provided under the Continuing Resolution that’s now in place — or $692 million less than the program received in fiscal year 2012.

Cuts of that magnitude would force states — which implement WIC under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s oversight — to make harsh choices about how to cut their caseloads.

Under one scenario, states might cut participation rapidly in April, May, and June — turning away all non-breastfeeding postpartum women and most children whose inadequate diets place them at nutritional risk (but who have not yet developed a medical condition), including many children who are only 1 year old.  Using this approach, many state WIC programs would achieve enough savings by June that they could begin to ease eligibility restrictions and maintain the June participation level in July, August, and September.  This would result in about 575,000 fewer participants nationally in the final months of the year than the average fiscal year 2012 participation level.

Alternatively, states could take a steady path of reducing the caseload by the same amount each month, turning away approximately 100,000 women and children monthly — including all non-breastfeeding postpartum women, many 2-year-olds, and all children aged 3 and 4 at nutritional risk due to an inadequate diet.  By September, the WIC caseload would be 750,000 less than the average caseload in fiscal year 2012.

Update April 11: The paper this post is based on has been updated and can be found here.

As we explain in a new paper, some 600,000 to 775,000 low-income women and children who are eligible for WIC — the highly effective nutrition program that serves roughly 9 million low-income women and children — will be turned away by the end of the fiscal year if the budget cuts known as “sequestration” take effect as scheduled on March 1.

That would break a longstanding and laudable bipartisan practice, dating back to 1997, of providing sufficient funding to ensure that WIC can serve all eligible low-income pregnant women, infants, and young children who apply.

WIC faces a $340 million funding cut compared to the level provided under the Continuing Resolution now in place — or $699 million less than the program received in fiscal year 2012.

Cuts of that magnitude would force states — which implement WIC under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s oversight — to make harsh choices about how to cut their caseloads.  The more rapidly that a state WIC program reduces the number of participants, the quicker the state will accumulate savings and the less steep the caseload reductions that they’ll need in the final months of the fiscal year (see chart).

Under one scenario, states might cut participation rapidly in April, May, and June — turning away all non-breastfeeding postpartum women and most children whose inadequate diets place them at nutritional risk (but who have not yet developed a medical condition), including many children who are only 1 year old.  Using this approach, many state WIC programs would achieve enough savings by June that they could begin to ease eligibility restrictions and maintain the June participation level in July, August, and September.  This would result in about 600,000 fewer participants nationally in the final months of the year than the average fiscal year 2012 participation level.

Alternatively, states could take a steady path of reducing the caseload by the same amount each month, turning away approximately 100,000 women and children monthly — including all non-breastfeeding postpartum women, about two-thirds of the 2-year-olds, and all children aged 3 and 4 at nutritional risk due to an inadequate diet.  By September, the WIC caseload would be 775,000 less than the average caseload in fiscal year 2012.

The negative effects of either option would likely reverberate beyond September — and recent research suggests that the consequences of low-income pregnant women, infants, and very young children losing food assistance could be significant and long-lasting.

The nuances of the states’ policies may be poorly understood, which could affect pregnant women and infants even if states continue to serve them.  For example, if states turn away non-breastfeeding postpartum women, word could spread that women can no longer get WIC benefits, and eligible pregnant or breastfeeding women may unwittingly miss out on benefits.  And even if policymakers provide adequate WIC funding for 2014, local WIC programs would not be able to hire staff and spread the word rapidly enough to begin serving all eligible applicants again at the start of the fiscal year in October.

Nearly 17 million children live in households that have trouble affording enough nutritious food at some point during the year, according to figures that the Agriculture Department released this week.  That’s a powerful reminder of why we must make sure that every child who needs school meals gets them, including low-income children who qualify for free or reduced-price meals.  My new report explains several steps that schools can take to make enrollment as smooth as possible.  They fall into three broad categories:

• Using special tools to enroll the most vulnerable children. Children who are in foster care, are homeless or migrant, or receive SNAP (formerly food stamps) do not need to complete an application because of their special vulnerability and because other programs have already assessed their need.  Connecting every one of these children to free school meals would reduce child hunger and help these children succeed in school despite hardships at home.  The Agriculture Department has funds available to help states adopt best practices in this area.
• Making sure that applications are easy for parents to understand and complete. Applications must not ask for information that the school does not need to determine eligibility.  They also need to be in a language and at a level that a parent can understand.  School districts are beginning to develop promising practices to ensure that language is not a barrier to applying for school meals.
• Serving breakfasts and lunches free to all children in high-poverty schools under the new “community eligibility” option. By reducing schools’ paperwork, this option frees up resources so schools can concentrate on reducing hunger and improving meal quality.  As a school official in Ohio commented, “It’s a good thing for the kids. It’s a good thing for the community.  It’s a good thing for parents. . . .  We can focus on our job of serving healthy school meals that keep our students active and learning.”

  Next year, the Agriculture Department will choose four states to join the seven that have already implemented community eligibility; after that, the option will be available to any school district in America.  The early adopters have developed useful resources that will make it easier for schools in poor neighborhoods to implement community eligibility.

Because school children are a captive audience, one can understandably assume that all children who qualify for free or reduced-price meals get enrolled.  By focusing on improving access and taking concrete steps throughout the school year, program administrators can make that goal a reality.

The potato industry is pressing Congress to break its 40-year commitment to ensuring that the foods that the WIC program provides reflect recommendations from nutrition scientists, not lobbyists.  And so far, it’s succeeding.

That’s bad news for the 9 million low-income pregnant and postpartum women, infants, and young children whom WIC — the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — serves.

Congress has never dictated the specific foods that WIC should provide, wisely leaving that to nutrition experts.  The sound scientific basis for WIC foods is one reason for WIC’s well-documented success at improving birth outcomes and participants’ nutrition and health.

In June, however, the House Appropriations Committee approved an amendment to WIC’s annual funding bill that requires WIC to allow participants to buy white potatoes with WIC fruit and vegetable vouchers.

The Agriculture Department started those vouchers in 2009 — the result of a multi-year process to align WIC foods with the latest nutrition science, based on recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine (IOM).  WIC is a supplemental nutrition program, so the IOM convened top health and nutrition experts to study which foods tend to be missing from WIC participants’ diets and recommend foods to include in the WIC food package.

As the IOM recommended, WIC provides vouchers for fruits and vegetables but not for white potatoes because that would offer no additional nutritional benefit.  Low-income mothers and young children already eat more than the recommended amounts of starchy vegetables.

Moreover, WIC participants receive only $6 each month for fruits and vegetables for children and $10 monthly for women.  Allowing participants to use their fruit and vegetable vouchers to buy white potatoes would “crowd out” foods that participants don’t eat enough of, like dark green leafy vegetables.

There’s a broader issue here, too.  Breaking Congress’s commitment to insulating WIC foods from political pressures would open the floodgates for lobbyists to pressure Congress to add any number of other products, regardless of their nutritional value.  That could jeopardize WIC’s success at improving participants’ nutrition and health.

The continuing resolution that Congress announced last week is likely to extend WIC’s funding for six months, so we won’t know the outcome of this issue until early next year, when Congress sets WIC funding for the remainder of fiscal year 2013.  For the sake of low-income women and young children, the Senate should reject the House’s white potato mandate and instead focus solely on promoting mothers’ and young children’s health.

The potato industry is pushing Congress to require the WIC program to add white potatoes to the limited list of foods it provides, counter to recommendations by the nation’s leading nutrition experts. Throughout WIC’s four-decade history, Congress has never intervened in the selection of specific WIC foods. Breaking that long-standing tradition could undermine one of our most successful federal programs by substituting political pressures for sound scientific judgment.

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 5.

As its name makes clear, WIC was never intended to provide a full range of foods; it is a supplemental program, providing the key nutrients that nutrition scientists have determined are missing from the diets of low-income pregnant and nursing women, infants, and young children. Potatoes have never been part of the WIC food package.

Following a multi-year, science-based process, the Agriculture Department (USDA) revised the WIC food package in 2009 to include fruits and vegetables for the first time — part of an effort to help fight the national epidemic of obesity. USDA relied on recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine (IOM).

As the IOM recommended, USDA did not include white potatoes because that would provide no additional nutritional benefit: WIC participants already eat more than the recommended amounts of starchy vegetables. Allowing participants to use their WIC fruit and vegetable vouchers — which are for a fixed dollar amount of food purchases — to buy potatoes would not only lead to further overconsumption of starches, but would leave less of their vouchers for foods that participants don’t eat enough of, such as dark green leafy vegetables.

The states or districts of many members of Congress include firms that grow or process specific food items that those lawmakers often feel compelled to promote. Fortunately, policymakers on a bipartisan basis have agreed since WIC’s creation in 1972 that decisions on which foods to include in the WIC food package should be based on the best scientific evidence, rather than political pressure, and should be determined through a science-based process rather than dictated by Congress.

If the potato industry’s lobbying campaign succeeds, that agreement will be broken and lobbyists for other foods will likely pressure Congress to add their products as well, regardless of what the science shows.

Extensive research shows that WIC improves birth outcomes as well as participants’ nutrition and health. In no small part, this success reflects Congress’ commitment to insulate WIC from political pressures and focus solely on promoting maternal and child health. Breaking that commitment now would jeopardize WIC’s record of accomplishment.