Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Reports President's Budget will Cut 500,000 From WIC Program

President’s Vetoes Could Cause Half a Million Low-Income Pregnant Women, Infants, and Children to be Denied Nutritional Benefits in One of Nation’s Most Effective Programs
By Zoё Neuberger and Robert Greenstein

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides nutritious foods, counseling on healthy eating, and health care referrals to low-income pregnant and postpartum women, infants, and children under age five who are at nutritional risk. Unlike other key low-income nutrition programs, such as food stamps or school meals, there is no entitlement to WIC benefits. WIC funding is “discretionary,” which means it is provided each year through the appropriations process. If funds are insufficient, eligible applicants are turned away or put on a waiting list for services, and some current participants may be dropped.
WIC currently serves about 8.5 million low-income mothers and young children with a budget of over $5 billion. The program has been acclaimed for its effectiveness — as documented by an extensive body of research — in reducing the incidence of low-weight births, reducing child anemia, and improving nutrition and health outcomes. WIC is widely regarded as one of the most effective programs at any level of government, and there has long been a bipartisan commitment — adhered to by previous congresses and by both the Clinton and Bush administrations until now — to provide sufficient funding to serve all eligible, women, infants, and children who apply.

Now, however, the Bush Administration’s insistence on limiting overall funding for domestic discretionary programs to the level proposed in the President’s budget — and the President’s vow to veto the agriculture appropriations bill because it exceeds the level his budget proposed for that bill — is raising the specter of substantial cuts in the program. (For a discussion of the President’s veto threat, see the box on page 3.) If funding for WIC, along with other domestic discretionary programs, is reduced to the level the President has proposed, the number of low-income women, infants, and children served by the program will have to be cut by more than 500,000 below the current level.

Funding Level Proposed by the Administration is Insufficient to Avert Cutbacks
The President proposed a fiscal year 2008 funding level for WIC of $5.387 billion, which was intended to serve an average monthly caseload of 8.28 million participants. At the time the President’s budget was put together late last year, this amount may have seemed sufficient. For two years in a row the per-participant cost of WIC foods had actually declined. Since the budget was developed, however, dairy prices have soared, and they are expected to remain elevated in fiscal year 2008. Milk and cheese account for about 40 percent of WIC food expenditures. Prices have also risen to high levels for juice and eggs, which account for another 25 percent of WIC food costs. As a result of higher food prices, it will cost significantly more than the Administration had anticipated to serve each WIC participant in fiscal year 2008.
Based on current food prices (and the latest estimates of food prices for the rest of fiscal year 2008), the funding level provided in the President’s budget would serve an average monthly caseload of only 7.97 million participants, significantly fewer than the Administration intended.[1]
Moreover, participation has risen somewhat in recent months as WIC food prices have spiked, making it more difficult for low-income families to afford these foods without assistance, and as unemployment has started to climb. The program served 8.48 million participants in the final quarter of fiscal year 2007, the most recent period for which data are available. Thus, the number of women, infants, and children that the program serves is 510,000 above the number who could be served under the funding level in the President’s budget.

To date, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the WIC program, has instructed the states (which actually operate the program) not to turn eligible WIC applicants away even though the funding level for fiscal year 2008 is uncertain. This has been helpful in averting WIC cutbacks until now. But if WIC funding ends up at the level in the President’s budget, it will mean that states will have operated for the first several months of the fiscal year at a funding level that significantly exceeds the available funding rate for the fiscal year — and states will actually need to cut WIC caseloads by more than 510,000 people in coming months to end up with an average participation decline of 510,000 for fiscal year 2008 as a whole.[2]

Moreover, reductions in the WIC caseload below the current level do not reflect the likelihood that the number of eligible families seeking WIC services will increase if adequate funding is available. Based on WIC participation trends and the current economic outlook, the Center estimates that the average monthly WIC caseload in fiscal year 2008 would increase by 70,000 — from the current level of 8.48 million to a level of 8.55 million — if all eligible applicants were served. Thus, an estimated 580,000 mothers and young children would likely be turned away if the program is funded at the level proposed by the President.