WIC woes

Photo by Chris Baker

I received an email a few days ago from a college student named Caitlin S. who’s writing a research paper on WIC. She read some of the articles on my blog and thought that my perspective would be valuable to her research, so she asked if she could ask me a few questions. I said absolutely! Here is a portion of the Q & A (slightly edited to fit this blog). continue reading »

I’ve talked plenty about how WIC seems to be decreasing in participation due to easier access to Food Stamps. I’m wondering how much money Food Stamps could save if it took into account which families had WIC eligible participants and reduced the benefits in those households accordingly. continue reading »

The $504 million dollar cut to WIC is expected to not have an effect on participants because that amount is a surplus beyond what it looks like they are going to need. According to the Eastern Idaho Public Health department participation in WIC is down locally and nationally and the cuts aren’t expected to make much of a difference this year. Why would WIC participation be down in an economy that’s down? continue reading »

The 2011 budget is getting voted on at the end of this week. Included in the $40 billion cut is $504 million being cut from WIC. This affects the budget through the current 2011 fiscal year, which actually ends in September 2011. I have a post on here already about how they could make this cut without hurting WIC participants, but today I’d like to ask why WIC is being put on the chopping block before Food Stamps. continue reading »

“Roughly 45 million Americans spend a third of their post-tax income on food.” Mark Bitmin, a food columnist for NY times, wrote that last month. I see this and wonder: how much are these families spending on food? continue reading »