Food Assistance for New Latino Parents and Children in Jeopardy

In the coming weeks, Latino parents, expecting parents, and young children with low-incomes who count on the WIC program to keep food on the table may find their assistance at risk or even cut off entirely. Congress missed the opportunity to provide additional funding for WIC in temporary government funding legislation that passed this week.

Now, they must immediately turn their focus to providing WIC with the full amount needed in final funding bills in January to make sure that every eligible child and new or expecting parent can continue to receive the crucial assistance WIC provides.

Over 2.5 million Latino people rely on WIC (formally the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) for healthy food and other vital services, but funding for this program is now in jeopardy.

For decades, pregnant or postpartum parents, infants, and young children who participate in WIC have benefitted from improvements in birth outcomes, diet quality, child development, access to health care, and future educational achievement. Based on this proven record of success, policymakers have upheld a bipartisan commitment to providing enough funding each year to ensure no eligible family is turned away from WIC.

Unfortunately, this year WIC is facing a funding shortfall due to higher-than-expected food costs and participation – an important development because only half of all eligible people actually participate in WIC in recent years. The shortfall jeopardizes crucial food assistance for Latino parents and young children. It’s critically important people don’t lose access to this vital program that helps pregnant participants obtain the nutritious foods they need to deliver healthy babies and helps ensure those babies are well-nourished as they grow into young children.

The current funding bills in both the House and the Senate fall short of this goal and would force states to turn away 600,000 eligible postpartum adults and children under 5. Meanwhile, under the House bill, another 4.7 million WIC participants would also see their assistance slashed, reducing their benefit to purchase fruits and vegetables by 58 to 71 percent. This reduction could leave WIC participants struggling to afford the vital nutrients they need to stay healthy.

With a shortfall looming and no assurance that additional funding is coming, parents and children may be put on a waiting list when they apply for WIC or when it’s time to renew their participation in the program, they may instead lose assistance altogether. If Congress doesn’t eventually provide this funding, cuts will be deeper and more people would have to be turned away.

Under WIC’s prioritization rules, those who would be turned away first are postpartum adults who are not breastfeeding and 3-year-olds who must renew their benefits when they turn 4. This includes over 200,000 Latino participants who are currently pregnant and who will need to renew their benefits shortly after giving birth and more than 350,000 Latino 3-year-olds.

In the current funding crisis, Latinos would disproportionately be put on waiting lists. Long-standing barriers to housing, education, employment opportunities, and other forms of discrimination have caused Latinos to be more likely to qualify for and seek out assistance from WIC and therefore more likely to be at risk of losing assistance now.

This looming shortfall comes as many families are already struggling to make ends meet. Last year, food insecurity for families with children rose, while 20% of all Latino households reported they could not afford enough to eat. Cuts to WIC would mean that these families would have an even harder time affording nutritious food, and new parents and their young children could face nutritional deficiencies and even hunger without the support WIC provides.

With access to WIC’s vital assistance in jeopardy, Congress must work to ensure WIC has sufficient funding after January to support all eligible families who seek assistance during the crucial early stages of a child’s life.

(*) About the Author: Zoë Neuberger, a Senior Policy Analyst, joined the Center in May 2001. She works on nutrition assistance programs. Neuberger provides analytic and technical assistance on child nutrition programs such as WIC and school lunches to policymakers and state-level non-profit groups. She holds a law degree from Yale University and a Master in Public Policy degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.