Washington mothers and their babies will have access to food benefits through the end of the month, even though the federal government remains shut down, the state’s Department of Health said Thursday.
Last week, state officials said the Women, Infants and Children program, or WIC, had just one to two weeks’ worth of funding to keep feeding low-income Washingtonians. The Department of Health encouraged enrollees to continue using their benefits as usual.
The newfound money is coming from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, not the state, the Department of Health said. But it was not immediately clear how much money the federal government was providing, or where it was being funneled from.
The Trump administration has said in recent days that it would use revenue from tariffs to keep the program running while the government is shut down. The White House and the U.S. Department of Agriculture didn’t respond to requests for comment late Thursday, with email autoreplies from spokespeople saying that the shutdown was disrupting reply times.
Even with the additional funding, Washington has seen the temporary closure of a WIC clinic, at Tri-Cities Community Health, said Nicole Flateboe, executive director of Nutrition First, the state’s WIC association. Two other clinics temporarily closed and then reopened. Another could close in a couple weeks. Yet another furloughed staff and stopped taking new clients.
Money for the program flows from the federal government to the state and then some of it to the clinics, which provide WIC services and help to get people enrolled in the program.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture funds the program, while the state Department of Health administers it in Washington. WIC participants can purchase food using electronic benefit transfer cards, which work like debit cards.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has pledged to make back payments once the shutdown ends. But the state has not, Flateboe said. And the expenses are too big for some of the clinics to take on without a guarantee they’ll be made whole. Other states are guaranteeing the payments.
“This is only Washington. This is incredibly embarrassing,” Flateboe said Thursday. “We’re the outlier.”
Nutrition First is pushing Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson to allow the state Department of Health to adjust the state’s contracts with the clinics to ensure reimbursement. A spokesperson for the governor didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Washington, over 200 clinics serve more than 212,000 women and their children under 5 years old annually under the WIC program, according to the state. WIC helps nearly one-third of all newborn babies. Nationally, the program serves nearly 7 million Americans.
WIC helps mothers with access to healthy food, breastfeeding support, nutrition education and health screenings. Research has shown participation in the program helps limit low birth weights and reduce maternal mortality.
The extra money announced Thursday only covers food benefits, not WIC’s other services.
The federal government shutdown began Oct. 1, with Democrats and Republicans at odds over whether to extend tax credits as part of stopgap funding legislation.
A shutdown at the start of the federal fiscal year, like this one, is particularly challenging for WIC, as states have little funding left over and haven’t received funding for the new year.
The nearly 30,000 people who use the program in King County already have a safety net. The local health department said this week it would issue one-time vouchers for food and baby formula to current clients through a partnership with Safeway if funding runs out.
The county also said it would temporarily cover grant costs for its WIC staff.
About 50 employees at the state health department were temporarily laid off or had their hours reduced starting Monday due to the shutdown. Most were working in the division that manages WIC.
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