Moms and babies in Ohio rely on $40 a month for food. Thousands are at risk of losing it

Missouri Jayne, 3, surveys the food plate her mom put on the kitchen table in front of her. It’s after-school snack time in the Reynolds’ Ludlow, Kentucky, home. She scoops a spoonful of yogurt, then reaches for some fresh walnuts.

Missouri and her mom, Allison Reynolds, are among millions of moms and kids – including hundreds of thousands in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana – who take part every month in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Women, Infants and Children Special Supplemental Nutrition Program.

The program is for low-income pregnant and post-partum people, infants and children through age 4 who are at nutritional risk. It provides nutritious foods, including fruits and vegetables, baby cereal and wholegrain foods, canned fish and eggs, soy-based beverages and, when needed, special infant formulas and medical foods.

The average monthly food benefit for each participant in fiscal year 2022 in Ohio was $43.40, according to the USDA Food and Nutrition Service. In Kentucky, the average was $43.05, and in Indiana, $39.64.

“It changed our lives,” Allison Reynolds said.

But funding for the program commonly called WIC is threatened this year because Congress has yet to approve an increase that would last an entire year. Instead, lawmakers have allowed the program to continue through short periods on 2023 budget levels of about $6 billion.

The U.S. Agriculture Department says it needs a billion dollars more in the current fiscal year 2024, which started in October and lasts until the end of September, to offset a rise in food prices and a need among more people for the program. But some lawmakers say they won’t support that kind of an increase.

The Biden administration asked Congress to approve $7.5 billion for WIC for the fiscal year 2024, and a funding shortfall could leave 2 million people across the country turned away, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan think tank that analyzes federal and state policies.

Ohio and Kentucky say they will not turn people away, but USDA head has concerns

The Ohio Department of Health in December 2023 was able to provide nutrition, education and support to 176,472 Ohio women, infants, and children, records show. That included more than 15,000 qualifying pregnant and postpartum people, infants and toddlers from Hamilton County.

A spokesman for the health department, Ken Gordon, said the program always anticipates receiving the full estimated amount from the federal government.

“If that changes, (the Ohio Department of Health) can make adjustments to the WIC program without needing to turn participants away,” he said. The health department “cannot speculate” on what adjustments might need to be made were that shortfall to happen, he said.

Brice Mitchell, spokesman for the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, was optimistic about the program, at least for now.

"The recent approval of continued funding from Congress through March 2024 will allow us to continue to provide services and healthy, nutritious foods to our families," Mitchell said. "At this time, we are confident that services and benefits can continue through April without risk of turning families away or introducing a waiting list."

Thomas Vilsack, secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, gave a different take on the situation in a press call this month. He said the nutrition program would face a shortfall in funding by September if Congress failed to fully fund it by Jan. 19.

He said Congress directed the agency to spend at a faster rate than Congress has provided the funding. If reserves run out, he said, there will be a shortfall by the end of fiscal the year.

On Jan. 19, rather than fully funding the department's request, Congress passed another stopgap spending plan at the 2023 level to last through the beginning of March.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that about 52,000 Ohio eligible participants could be turned away in September 2024 if the program is not fully funded. For Kentucky, the center's estimate was 34,000. In Indiana, it's 43,000.

'It changed everything,' Northern Kentucky mom says

The idea of cuts to the nutrition program makes Reynolds nervous – not for her family, which she said is on the path to being financially stable – but for other families who need the same stability she gained from the WIC program.

She was a stay-at-home mom and pregnant in 2020 when the children's father left the family due to an addiction disorder, she said. She gave birth to Missouri prematurely that December, at 4.4 pounds, and learned she could not breastfeed her daughter.

"The preemie formula we were going to need was about $50 a can," she said. "Missouri probably wouldn't have had the correct formula." But her supplemental food benefit covered the cost.

More recently, a WIC nurse recommended that Missouri get her hemoglobin checked. And through that test, Reynolds learned the little girl was severely anemic – to the point of having a heart murmur. WIC has helped Reynolds give her daughter the nutrition she needs to overcome imbalances that caused the anemia.

Missouri's health has improved. Her murmur disappeared, and Reynolds credits the WIC program – both nurses and nutrition – for her daughter's health, as well as help for her son and herself.

"It changed everything," Reynolds said.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Inaction in Congress threatens WIC benefits, Biden administration says