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Thursday, March 3, 2011

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: IN MY MAILBOX -- Cutting WIC

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: IN MY MAILBOX -- Cutting WIC

IN MY MAILBOX -- Cutting WIC


Dear Mike ,

In case you missed it: The budget legislation passed by the House of Representatives would slash $747 million -- about 10 percent -- from the 2011 budget for the Special Supplemental Feeding Program for Women, Infants and Children. It's commonly known as "WIC."

WIC was created in 1974 to provide a very modest but crucial measure of food assistance to low-income moms and little kids who are at "nutrition risk." To qualify for this modest assistance, recipients must be poor -- very poor. Some 68 percent of WIC beneficiaries live at, or below, the poverty line.