The Food Stamp Program is the nation's most important food assistance program, especially for children. It provides more substantial nutrition assistance to low‑income children than all of the nation's child nutrition programs combined. More than half of all food stamp participants are children, and over 80 percent of food stamp benefits go to families with children. Furthermore, the Food Stamp Program is the only social program that creates a national benefit floor under nearly all categories of poor households, assisting low-income children and their families as well as low‑income elderly, disabled and unemployed individuals.

Moreover, food stamps serve as an important work support by helping low‑wage workers make ends meet. Leaders from across the political spectrum haxve agreed that a family supported by a full‑time, year‑round, minimum-wage worker should not have to live in poverty. Such a family, however, will fall short of the poverty line by 25 percent, even after counting the Earned Income Tax Credit, if the family does not receive food stamps. And because food stamps (unlike the EITC) come to families throughout the year, they can help these families meet monthly expenses.

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WIC — short for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — provides nutritious foods, information on healthy eating, and health care referrals to about 8 million low-income pregnant and postpartum women, infants, and children under five. WIC provides vouchers that may be used at grocery stores to buy specific nutrient-rich foods. About 47 percent of all babies born in the United States participate in WIC.

Each year states save $1.5 billion in federal WIC funds through the use of a competitive bidding process to purchase infant formula for their WIC programs. As a result, over the past 15 years, WIC food costs per participant have risen at only half the rate of grocery store food prices. Food costs, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, have risen 50 percent, while WIC food costs per participant have risen 25 percent.

The School Lunch and School Breakfast programs provide free and reduced-price meals that meet federal nutritional standards to over 22 million school children from low-income families. When the programs were reauthorized in 2004, significant improvements were enacted to make it easier for eligible children to receive free or reduced-price meals, while reducing the chance of ineligible children getting meals. For example, children in households that receive food stamps will be enrolled for free school meals automatically, without having to complete an application, and school districts will be required to review a sample of applications more carefully to make sure families are eligible.