A nutrition program for low-income women and children has received an additional $450 million from the Trump administration, allowing benefits to continue as the government shutdown stretches into a second month.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget on Friday used customs revenue to fund the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, according to funding records and two Trump administration officials. The administration dipped into the same revenue stream to keep financing the program through October.
The additional money for WIC comes as the Trump administration announced it would only fund partial benefits for another food aid program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, for November.
Some 6.7 million women and small children, including nearly 41 percent of all infants born in the United States, participate in WIC. Monthly benefits include cash allotments for produce, vouchers for dairy and eggs, nutrition and lactation support, and infant formula.
The program typically costs $150 million a week, said Ali Hard, the policy director of the National WIC Association, a nonprofit that supports the program. But the shutdown and disruption to other assistance programs has made it difficult to determine how long this tranche of funding will last. States have reported a surge of new applications from furloughed federal workers and beneficiaries spending their benefits at a faster pace, Ms. Hard said.
When the government shutdown began last month, advocates and officials had warned that WIC would exhaust funding by mid-October. But the Agriculture Department found a novel solution, tapping $300 million in customs revenue — from an account known as Section 32 that is typically used to fund child nutrition programs like school lunch — to support WIC through the month.
That account, some lawmakers and a federal judge have suggested, could also be used to support SNAP in its funding lapse. The Trump administration had resisted using that option, arguing in court on Monday that such a move would cut into funding for child nutrition programs.
While the Agriculture Department believes there are sufficient funds in that account to support WIC, “the agency does not believe the same is true for SNAP due to the significant differences between the amounts at issue,” Patrick A. Penn, the deputy under secretary for the agency’s Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, said in a legal declaration filed on Monday.
Though WIC has been spared the widespread disruptions to SNAP, Ms. Hard noted that toggling between funding uncertainty and temporary injections also made it “incredibly difficult” for states and clinics to administer WIC normally. The shutdown and funding lapses have resulted in staffing shortages, decreases in clinic operating hours, interruptions to services like breastfeeding support and delays in certifying participants and renewing benefits.
“We are really grateful that they’re transferring additional funds, but we absolutely need long-term certainty,” Ms. Hard said.
Tony Romm contributed reporting.
Linda Qiu is a Times reporter who specializes in fact-checking statements made by politicians and public figures. She has been reporting and fact-checking public figures for nearly a decade.
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