As the shutdown continues, federal government programs that support the least among us are sounding the alarm. They say no money means that aid will simply dry up.
One such program that got a last-minute reprieve is WIC: The USDA's Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children supports more than 6 million pregnant women, mothers and their children. The White House says it is using tariff revenues to infuse WIC with about $300 million to pay for food and formula and other truly necessary aid.
Scripps News spoke with Jamie Bussell, a senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, about the state of the program.
"Regular federal funding is running out for the WIC program. The United States Department of Agriculture has said that they can cover a short-term lapse in funding through the end of this month. So in other words, for the next two plus weeks," Bussell said.
"If federal funding does cease, there are some states that will be able to fill the gap. There are many states that will not be able to fill that gap. So we're already seeing reports at the local level of local WIC agencies needing to shut their doors, of funding running out, of participants — women, pregnant women — being put on waiting lists. The situation is actually quite dire."
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"The WIC program, the SNAP program, our federal food and nutrition programs, are not luxuries. They're not Republican programs, they are not Democratic programs," Bussell said. "These are lifelines for literally millions of kids and families and people in America. And so I think we can all agree regardless of what side of the line you're on, that kids and families across the country should have steady, stable access to healthy, affordable food. That is a foundational basic need and should be a fundamental human right."
"People are really worried about 'how I'm going to feed my kid tomorrow?' I think what we need to be doing is imploring our policy makers to put people first and not politics," Bussell said. "These are really important programs that people in most cases depend on temporarily. These are not programs that people stay on in perpetuity. They really truly are a hand up, not a handout. And so the ongoing governmental shutdown, our continuing rise in food prices, the recent legislation over this past summer through the 'Big Beautiful Bill' that significantly cutting funding across the board to food and nutrition programs, all of this are increasing the risk of hunger for literally millions and millions of kids and families and people in America. It's unconscionable."
Watch the full interview with Bussell in the video above.