WIC at 50: Why the momentous occasion comes at a precarious time for the program

Fifty years ago, on an unseasonably mild January morning, the first clinic in the country that would administer the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, opened in Pineville, Kentucky out of the Bell County Health Department. The small wood-paneled building — which now sits up the street from the Dollar General, in the shadow of Pine Mountain — was packed that day. Betty Hopkins, a now-retired nurse who worked at the clinic, described it as such: “It was like hoopla.” 

In the decades since, WIC has continued to grow and to serve huge swaths of the American population, including about 6.3 million participants each month in the fiscal year 2022.

“Few could have imagined then the impact WIC would have over the ensuing 50 years,” said Georgia Machell, the interim president and CEO of the National WIC Association. “WIC has transformed the lives of millions of women and young children over the past half-century: reducing poverty and hunger, providing women with critical pregnancy care and breastfeeding support, and ensuring young children have the nutrition and healthcare services they need for a healthy start in life.”  

However, according to Machell, this momentous anniversary comes at a precarious time for the program As such, her observance of the occasion comes with a warning: “As we rightly celebrate WIC’s past, we must also take great care to protect it today.” 

Congress is back in session for 2024, however, as was the case before they went on break in December, the members need to agree upon and then approve the budget for the new fiscal year, or risk a partial government shutdown starting on Jan. 20. As of last Monday, congressional leaders had agreed on an overall budget for funding the government. Now, they must write the legislation required to fund different government agencies, including the United States Department of Agriculture, which administers WIC. 

Put another way, a deeply divided Congress has less than two weeks to pass four appropriations bills, which has led food security advocates to voice concern over whether programs like WIC will garner the support they actually need in order to meet an anticipated increase in demand for services. 

As Salon reported in November, generations of largely conservative politicians have attempted to decrease the reach of programs like SNAP and WIC because their participants — specifically low-income Americans of color — are viewed as fraudulent, lazy and undeserving, a stereotype that was only further cemented by the popularization of the phrase “welfare queen” by Ronald Reagan during his 1976 presidential campaign (only two years after the federal implementation of WIC). 

“There’s a woman in Chicago,” he infamously said during a campaign speech. “She has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards. She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income alone is over $150,000.” 

In a December press release, the USDA itself wrote that WIC costs are higher this year than last year, in part because more eligible people are signing up for the program meaning, per the organization, that “more pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and children are getting access to nutritious food and important health resources they need to thrive” 

“However, in the two Continuing Resolutions enacted so far this year, Congress did not provide the additional $1 billion in estimated funding needed to ensure WIC can serve all those who seek its services in fiscal year 2024,” the release continued. “It is critical that Congress provide additional funding for WIC in the January appropriation. The longer Congress puts off fully funding WIC, the greater the risk to mothers, babies, and children seeking nutrition and health support from the program.” 

This is a sentiment that is echoed by Machell of the National WIC Association. 

“WIC helps care for more than half of babies born in the United States,” she said. “But an ongoing funding shortfall increases the risk that states may have to start turning prospective participants away, or that current participants may have their benefits reduced. In a time when rates of hunger, poverty, and maternal mortality are all rising, a commitment to securing WIC’s future has never been more critical. Congress simply must come through with the additional dollars WIC needs to carry out its critical mission.” 

She continued: “For decades, the promise of WIC has been that the program will be there for anyone who needs it. It is a promise worth keeping — today, tomorrow, and for all the days to come.”