WIC - History

History

In 1968, a group of physicians described to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and the USDA that young women, often pregnant, came to their clinics with various ailments that were caused by a lack of food. The doctors would prescribe needed foods, with the prescription acting as a sort of food voucher. WIC’s program beginnings surface in 1969, when the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health recommended that special attention be given to the nutritional needs of low-income pregnant women and preschool children.

WIC was formally created by an amendment to section 17 of the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 on September 26, 1972. The legislation (P.L. 92-433, sponsored by Senator Hubert Humphrey (D) of Minnesota) established the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) as a 2-year pilot program. Eligibility was limited to children up to age 4 and excluded non-breastfeeding postpartum women. By the end of 1974, WIC was operating in 45 states. On October 7, 1975, WIC was established as a permanent program (P.L. 94-105). Eligibility was extended to non-breastfeeding women (up to 6 months postpartum) and children up to 5 years of age. However, all participants must be deemed to be at nutrition risk and with inadequate income (however, what constituted inadequate income was not defined). In 1978, P.L. 95-627 defined nutrition risk and established income eligibility standards that were linked to the income standards associated with reduced price school meals. Another income standard change took place in 1989, when P.L. 101-147 established similar income eligibility for Food Stamp, Medicaid, and AFDC participation, thus lowering the WIC income standard and simplifying the application process. WIC began to promote and support breastfeeding women in the late 1980s, and in 1989 Congress mandated $8 million be used specifically for that purpose. Also in 1999, the WIC program standardized nutrition risk criteria for program eligibility and began assigning individual nutrition risk priority levels.