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Dec. 18, 2023 |  By: Clara Bates - Missouri Independent

Potential federal funding shortfall could mean 27,000 Missourians lose food aid

WIC

By Clara Bates - Missouri Independent

Around 27,000 Missourians who rely on a federal nutrition program for infants, young children, and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers could see benefits eliminated next year unless Congress increases funding. 

That’s according to a recent report from the D.C.-based nonpartisan think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, which estimates that two million people nationally could be turned away from the Women, Infants and Children program, better known as WIC, by September of next year if it continues to operate at its current funding levels.

There were just over 93,000 WIC participants in Missouri as of September of this year.

The Biden Administration requested around $1 billion in emergency funding for the program this federal fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, because of increased participation and rising food costs. 

But Congress has not provided any additional funding in its two short-term funding bills passed so far, and some U.S. House Republicans have called to shrink the longstanding program. 

The most recent stopgap funding bill, signed last month, included $6 billion for WIC for 2024, but Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates around $7 billion will be needed to cover those projected to utilize the program this year. Congress’ stopgap funding extension expires Jan. 19. 

“Congress shouldn’t let us even come this close to this point,” said Ty Jones Cox, vice president for food assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, during a press call Tuesday. “We are a wealthy nation that can afford to make sure toddlers have milk and vegetables.”

If there is a funding shortfall, the researchers predict states will implement wait lists and turn away participants. March could be the earliest states begin implementing measures to reduce participation, according to the report, assuming Congress finalizes the current funding levels in mid-January.

“WIC is a nutrition program,” said Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “but it is also a connector program: It’s connecting people to the other particularly health services that they need,” including prenatal care.

The report notes that turning people away due to insufficient funding would “severely undermine” progress made nationally with a “recent uptick in participation” and could have a lasting effect on participation.

Missouri has faced particular participation challenges over the last few years but has pointed to recent improvements.

Only 39.5% of eligible Missourians participated in WIC in 2021, one of the lowest participation rates in the country, due in part to the state’s burdensome in-person system for benefit dispersal. But from October 2022 to September 2023, the rate of participation increased by around 8%, the department previously told The Independent.