Off the Charts Blog | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

As we’ve noted previously, the 2014 agriculture appropriations bill moving through the House underfunds WIC, the highly regarded nutrition program for low-income pregnant women, infants, and young children, and as a result could deny WIC benefits and services to eligible women and children at nutritional risk.  With the bill moving to the full House Appropriations Committee on Thursday, it’s important to understand what’s at stake.

The House bill relies on two unsound budget choices to try to avoid turning away about 140,000 eligible women and children, according to our updated estimate that’s based on new data.

• More than 98 percent of WIC funds are devoted to the core supplemental foods, nutrition education, and health care referrals for which the highly regarded program is known.  In recent years, about $100 million has been dedicated to two special purposes — an evidence-based breastfeeding peer counseling program and technology upgrades to convert the program from using paper vouchers to electronic benefit cards, which improves management and reduces costs in the long run.

  The House bill would use these funds for benefits if there is a shortfall, which the bill’s funding level is very likely to create — effectively terminating the part of the program that provides breastfeeding counseling to pregnant women and new mothers.  This would mark the first time since the breastfeeding program’s creation in 2004 — in response to medical evidence on the health benefits of breastfeeding — that policymakers have denied funding to this part of the program.

• Moreover, even with the breastfeeding funds and technology funds, the funding likely would not be adequate to serve all eligible applicants.  The bill also relies on WIC’s Contingency Fund to cover the remaining shortfall — a risky move.  The Contingency Fund is designed to cover unanticipated costs that arise after the appropriation is enacted — e.g., spikes in dairy prices, in fruit juice prices after a winter freeze, or in egg prices after an avian flu outbreak (all of which have occurred in WIC’s history), or a slowing economy that makes more people eligible for the program.  If policymakers tap the Contingency Fund to meet funding needs that we know about before the fiscal year starts, the fund may not be there for unanticipated costs during the year.

The full Appropriations Committee has an opportunity to amend the bill to adequately fund WIC.  If the Committee raises WIC funding, the breastfeeding program could stay in place, the program could continue to be modernized, the Contingency Fund could be reserved for truly unanticipated costs — and policymakers could continue their longstanding bipartisan commitment to providing WIC with enough funding to serve all eligible low-income pregnant women, infants, and young children who apply.

The 2014 agriculture appropriations bill that a House subcommittee will consider today would underfund WIC, the highly regarded nutrition program for low-income pregnant women, infants, and young children.  The bill could result in the denial of WIC benefits and services to thousands of eligible women and children at nutritional risk.  And it would effectively end the part of the program that provides breastfeeding counseling to pregnant women and new mothers.

The bill bars the use of WIC funds for the Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Program if that means there wouldn’t be sufficient funds to serve all eligible low-income women, infants, and children who apply.  This prohibition would force WIC to cancel the breastfeeding program for most or all of the fiscal year, since the bill’s WIC funding level ($6.655 billion) very likely would be insufficient — and even if it turned out to be sufficient (due to lower-than-expected participation and food costs), the Agriculture Department wouldn’t know that until late in the fiscal year and would have to withhold the breastfeeding funds until then.

If enacted, this would mark the first time since the breastfeeding program’s creation in 2004 — in response to medical evidence on the health benefits of breastfeeding — that policymakers have denied funding to this part of the program.

Evaluations have found that breastfeeding counseling improves breastfeeding rates and duration.  Without this dedicated funding, many states would likely lay off their WIC breastfeeding counselors.

The bill also would help compensate for its underfunding of WIC benefits by withdrawing funding for state investments to strengthen WIC management by converting WIC from paper vouchers to electronic benefit cards.

Even with the withdrawal of funding for breastfeeding counseling and strengthening WIC management, the bill’s underfunding of WIC might force the program to turn away some eligible women and children at nutritional risk.  We estimate that if funds were not diverted from these activities to help pay for WIC benefits, the program would have to turn away nearly 200,000 eligible women and children next year.  Even if the funds were diverted, we estimate that about 40,000 eligible applicants would be turned away unless the program’s Contingency Fund were drawn down.

To be sure, the Contingency Fund might cover the funding shortfall that the bill would create, but counting on that would be risky.  The Contingency Fund is designed to cover unanticipated costs that arise after the appropriation is enacted — such as spikes in dairy prices, in fruit juice prices following a winter freeze, or in egg prices following an avian flu outbreak (all of which have occurred in WIC’s history), or a slowing of the economy that makes more people eligible for the program.

If policymakers rely on the Contingency Fund to meet funding needs that can be anticipated even before the fiscal year starts, the fund may not be there when it’s needed.

Moreover, the Contingency Fund won’t help the Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Program.  Under the bill, WIC must divert the breastfeeding funds to cover any shortfall in paying for WIC benefits before it can tap the Contingency Fund.  This is why breastfeeding counselors, often low-income mothers themselves, would likely be laid off under the House bill.

House appropriators should honor the longstanding bipartisan practice of providing WIC enough funding to serve all eligible low-income pregnant women, infants, and young children who apply — without undermining breastfeeding support or depleting the Contingency Fund unless unforeseen circumstances arise.

With the farm bill and appropriations bills moving through Congress, the potato industry is pushing again to require the WIC program to add white potatoes to the limited list of foods it provides, contrary to what the nation’s leading nutrition experts recommend.  Despite such lobbying campaigns in the past, Congress has never dictated the specific foods that WIC should provide — and it shouldn’t start now.

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.

WIC was never intended to provide a full range of foods; it’s a supplemental program, providing the key nutrients that nutrition scientists say 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 fight the national obesity epidemic.

As the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine 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 more starch consumption, but would leave less 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 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 determined through a science-based process rather than dictated by Congress.

In no small part, WIC’s well-documented success at improving birth outcomes and participants’ nutrition and health reflects Congress’ commitment to insulate WIC from political pressures and focus solely on promoting maternal and child health.  Breaking that long-standing commitment now could undermine one of our most successful federal programs by substituting political pressures for sound scientific judgment.

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.