In January, 50 years after the very first clinic in the country that would administer the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, opened in Pineville, Kentucky, the National WIC Association’s current president, Georgia Machell, issued a warning: “As we rightly celebrate WIC’s past, we must also take great care to protect it today.”
At the time, Congress was in the throes of debating the budget for the new fiscal year — and it seemed like the future of WIC was in peril. In July, House Republicans had already proposed curtailing WIC in the chamber’s version of the US Department of Agriculture’s spending bill. As CNN reported, the proposed cuts included reducing WIC’s funding for 2024 to $5.5 billion, which would have been $185 million less than the fiscal year prior; this was despite the fact that the organization had already predicted they would need additional $1 billion in funding to keep up with increased demand amid escalating food insecurity rates.
