The Administration and State Officials Should Take Steps to Keep WIC Operating During a Partial Government Shutdown

Reported White House statements imply that if the federal government partially shuts down on October 1, the WIC program will shut down almost immediately, meaning low-income families would lose out on the grocery staples the program provides during critical periods of child development. But there are steps the federal government and states can take to keep WIC operating temporarily.

The WIC program, formally known as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, provides science-based food benefits, nutrition counseling, breastfeeding support, and other services to children under age 5 and to new and expecting parents. Losing WIC’s food benefits could hit families with low incomes hard, making it difficult for them to put enough food on the table.

Periods of food insecurity can have lasting consequences for children. And a gap in benefits could be devastating for the families with newborns and young babies who rely on WIC for infant formula.

That’s why, if there is a shutdown, the Administration and states must do everything they can to keep WIC benefits flowing and avoid confusing families into mistakenly believing they cannot enroll or use their benefits.

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) could:

• immediately distribute WIC’s $150 million contingency fund, as it did when the government partially shut down at the start of the 2014 fiscal year. While modest compared to the $8.2 billion the program needs for the full year, the contingency fund would allow the program to continue operating uninterrupted for about a week.
• recover unspent funds from the fiscal year that’s ending and reallocate them across the states, accelerating a process that happens routinely throughout the year.
• provide written assurance to states that if they use state funding to continue operating the program, as many did during the 2014 shutdown, they will be able to replenish state coffers once federal funds are flowing.

In addition, states will have some WIC funding that they can use to continue operating the program. That includes a limited amount of fiscal year 2025 funding that, by law, can be used in fiscal year 2026. It also includes rebates routinely paid by infant formula companies, which averaged $135 million monthly during the first eight months of this fiscal year.

Nonetheless, taken together, federal funding sources and rebates combined might not last through October. To allow operations to continue uninterrupted and assure families who need help that they can get it even if the shutdown lasts more than a couple of weeks, states should commit now to using their own funds to cover a temporary gap. As noted above, assurance from USDA that they will be made whole would help.

Without the assurance of state stopgap funding, state WIC officials would face a terrible dilemma: either stop enrolling some or all new eligible individuals to stretch existing funds further or continue normal operations but risk running out of funds before the shutdown ends. Turning away new applicants even for a short period would likely lead current participants to mistakenly believe they cannot use their benefits, or lead eligible families not to apply in states whose programs remain open.

Moreover, the disruption would undermine years of work to modernize the program and reach the millions of people who are eligible for WIC but don’t participate, missing out on the well-documented improvements in health, diet, and development associated with WIC participation.

While these risks to the families that rely on WIC are troubling, these same families face risks from funding laws that do not include enforceable measures to prevent the Trump Administration from clawing back funding by seeking partisan rescission legislation or by unlawfully and unilaterally impounding funds, including through so-called “pocket rescissions.” The President’s budget proposes funding for programs like WIC, rental assistance, and K-12 education that is well below the funding levels in pending appropriations bills. Thus these programs would be especially vulnerable to unlawful impoundment and pocket rescissions, with the result that children and families could lose access to needed assistance, including through WIC.

Without enforceable measures in any bipartisan funding agreement establishing that the Administration will ensure funding provided by Congress reaches the people Congress intends, there is a significant risk that appropriated funds will not reach the parents and children for whom they are intended.

If a shutdown is averted, both the House Republican and Senate Democratic versions of the temporary stopgap funding bills under consideration would allow the Administration to provide WIC with the funds needed to continue operating as usual during the period in which such a continuing resolution is in effect. Eventually, lawmakers must provide WIC with enough funding for the full fiscal year to serve all eligible people who apply and provide them with the full science-based food benefits. The bipartisan Senate bill would accomplish this by providing an increase of about $600 million over last year’s level to accommodate growing participation and food prices. The House bill would reduce fruit and vegetable benefits for more than 4 million participants and force states to turn away an estimated half million eligible people by the end of the 2026 fiscal year. Congress must adopt the Senate approach to WIC funding and accompany it with provisions that ensure the Trump Administration cannot override spending laws.