TEXAS \u2014\u00a0The government shutdown has ended, but the lag time for\u00a0Texans\u00a0who depend on federal nutrition assistance to get that help is expected to be ongoing. Inside\u00a0one of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC)\u00a0clinics,\u00a0officials\u00a0said they expect the surge to continue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve actually been with the\u00a0WIC program\u00a0for 25 years,\u201d said Maggie Saldana.<\/p>\n
Saldana said that in those 25 years, working in the Special Supplement Nutrition Program for Women,\u00a0Infants\u00a0and Children, she\u2019s seen things fluctuate.<\/p>\n
\u201cYears back, our participation was a little bit higher. Then, it started decreasing. Recently we\u2019ve seen an increase where it\u2019s starting to inch up again,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She attributes the uptick to politics in Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the last month, we have seen an increase in the number of calls of people trying to participate in the program because of the government shutdown,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The longest government shutdown in history may be over, but during the shutdown,\u00a0curiosity grew about who might qualify for WIC. Loss of paychecks, along with the steady rise in food prices over the past few years, are also bringing more folks in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u00a0have gotten some questions like \u2018I\u2019ve been furloughed\u2019, so they\u2019re attempting to get on the program. They want to know, \u2018How can I get on WIC,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
WIC provides free healthy food and nutrition information for caregivers of children under 5,\u00a0as well as breastfeeding support for pregnant and new moms.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re participating in Medicaid, SNAP or TANF, then you automatically qualify income-wise,\u201d Saldana said.<\/p>\n
Income guidelines require a family income at or below 185% of the\u00a0U.S. poverty\u00a0level. For a\u00a0three-person\u00a0household, for instance, that equates to just over $47,000 a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe go by the income that they\u2019ve received in the last 30 days. If there\u2019s no income coming into the household, then we will look at how have you been surviving in the last 30 days. They can bring in bank statements,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Grateful is one word Saldana used when describing how\u00a0recipients feel\u00a0when they get that bit of relief knowing they will provide food for their families. She explains that with\u00a0persistent inflation\u00a0and the rise in food costs, she expects them to stay busy.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur participation at this time is approximately about\u2026I think last month it was 36,000,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014\u00a0The government shutdown has ended, but the lag time for\u00a0Texans\u00a0who depend on federal nutrition assistance to get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1657,1658,1570,6716,223,287,82,84,83,27,1569,835],"class_list":["post-49697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-ctv","tag-lauren-kendrick","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}