Sponsors (80)
Official title: To amend the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 to permit video or telephone certifications in the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 21, 2025 by Brian K. Fitzpatrick · Last progress February 21, 2025
The bill modernizes WIC to provide faster, more flexible benefit delivery and remote supports for many low‑income families, but it risks creating gaps (abrupt terminations, digital exclusion), privacy and fraud vulnerabilities, and added implementation burdens for state and federal agencies.
Low-income pregnant and postpartum people, infants, and children can be provisionally be certified based on income so they get faster, immediate access to WIC benefits.
Parents and low-income women and infants can receive WIC food instruments (including mailed cards or EBT) without traveling to local offices, speeding delivery and reducing barriers from transport/childcare constraints.
Explicit authorization of electronic benefit transfer (EBT) for WIC modernizes transactions, likely improving retailer acceptance and aligning WIC with other nutrition programs.
Participants provisionally certified remotely risk abrupt termination if required anthropometric data aren’t collected within 90 days, potentially cutting off benefits for vulnerable families.
Participants without reliable mailing addresses, phone/internet access, smartphones, or digital literacy (including rural and homeless populations) could be left behind if delivery shifts toward remote/electronic-only methods.
States and USDA will likely incur implementation and administrative costs to set up remote issuance systems, EBT infrastructure, data collection, and reporting, straining program budgets and staff time.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Requires in-person WIC certification options, allows remote certification with strict data-timelines, expands remote/electronic benefit issuance, and mandates a federal report on remote WIC technologies.
Makes permanent and expands allowable remote delivery methods for WIC food benefits and digital tools while also restoring and clarifying in-person certification rights and timelines. It requires State agencies to offer in-person certification and nutritional risk evaluation options, allows interim income-based certification pending timely collection of anthropometric data, permits remote issuance of food instruments (including electronic methods), and directs a federal report on remote technology use and best practices within one year.