Lawmakers Push Legislation to Make It Easier for Families to Access WIC Benefits

A young parent feeds an infant food that they bought using their WIC benefit.

At the same time, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are trying to roll back funds for fruits and vegetables.

By Lisa Held

June 17, 2025

June 17, 2025 – During a Congressional briefing on Capitol Hill today, lawmakers and advocates pushed for the passage of the MODERN WIC Act, a bill that would allow state agencies that administer the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to continue certifying participants and issuing benefits virtually.

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During the pandemic, legislators allowed the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to waive requirements that mandated all WIC-eligible members of a family—including infants and children—be enrolled in person. Virtual appointments have continued since, but the provision is set to expire in September of 2026. An average of 6.2 million people, including millions of children, rely on WIC to fill nutrition gaps during critical stages of development each year.

“In 2025, or any year for that matter, no mother should have to take three buses, miss work, or find childcare just to keep her benefits, and no child should wait weeks for the nutritional support that they need right now,” said Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania), who co-sponsored the bipartisan bill with Representative Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon). “The MODERN WIC Act brings this critical program into the 21st century by making it work better for the real lives of today’s families.”

WIC, which provides healthy foods and formula to low-income mothers and their children and is linked to improved health outcomes, has historically enjoyed support on both sides of the aisle.

But the push to maintain virtual certification for easier enrollment comes at a time when the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have also proposed cutting WIC benefits for fruits and vegetables. Experts who participated in today’s briefing said this move would undermine recent progress in helping low-income families eat healthier.

During the Biden administration, as part of a plan to help more eligible families take advantage of WIC, the USDA revised the WIC food package to cover more options at the grocery store. In the process, the agency raised the amount of the cash value given to participants for fruits and vegetables to about $26 per month for children and $50 for mothers.

“The extra support made a huge difference in my home,” said Jehimy Benitez, a young mother who used WIC benefits to help feed her daughter, Allison, who attended the briefing with her. “It meant I didn’t have to choose between nutritious foods and other necessities, and then I could bring fresh produce home for my daughter and teach her what it means to be healthy.”

The Trump administration’s discretionary budget request for 2026 proposed rolling back this benefit to a level set in 2014, adjusted for inflation. That would mean a decrease to $10 per month for children and $13 per month for mothers.

During the appropriations process in early June, Republicans in Congress included a smaller cut, but advocates said that would still hurt families.

“Participation [in WIC] has grown pretty significantly in the past couple of years, including about a 15 percent increase in child participation, which is a really exciting step forward for the program, and we want to make sure that no one is turned away,” said Nell Menefee-Libey, senior public policy manager at the National WIC Association. “We are concerned that the recently proposed House Agriculture Appropriations bill does not provide sufficient funding to meet that standard, such that every person who seeks WIC services and is eligible will receive them.” Congress has until October 1 to finalize appropriations. (Link to this post.)

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Lisa Held is Civil Eats’ senior staff reporter and contributing editor. Read more >