In 1972, Congress authorized the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) as a pilot program to provide supplemental food to infants and mothers with low income in an amendment to the Child Nutrition Act of 1966. Under the pilot program, participants could use their WIC to purchase specific grocery items designated in the program’s approved food package. At the time, the program’s approved food package consisted of eggs, cheese, fruit juice, infant formula, milk, juice, and cereal. In the following years, Florida operated seven pilot programs, including ones in Brevard, Broward, Collier, Dade, Jacksonville-Duval, Miami, and Okaloosa.
By 1975, WIC pilot programs in Florida were lauded as decreasing premature births as well as iron deficiency anemia in women and children in the state. However, the program’s approved package of selected foods was criticized as culturally inappropriate for many participants as well inadequate for people with allergies. For example, at the time, WIC did not allow participants to purchase legumes with their benefits despite the preference for beans in Latin American cuisine. Additionally, WIC did not allow participants to obtain substitutes for foods in the WIC package that their children were allergic to. Still, as of 1975, Florida’s WIC caseload consisted of 13,561 women and children.
Today, in 2024, WIC provides monthly food assistance for infants, children under the age of 5 at nutritional risk, and low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum mothers. WIC is associated with improved school performance, better overall health outcomes for infants and children who are nutritionally at risk, a reduction in low-birth-weight rates, and improved fetal and cognitive development. The program is also a tool to address racial disparities in the health of mothers and infants. In Florida, people of color experience higher rates of complications during pregnancy and maternal and infant mortality than white people.
As of March 2024, more than 410,000 people in Florida participate in WIC. Although WIC participants in Florida come from all races and ethnicities, the majority are Black and Latina/o, who experience higher rates of poverty and food insecurity due to systemic racism in the workforce.