The program providing food assistance to women, infants and children will remain operational even as food stamps from SNAP are suspended in Alabama. <\/p>\n
In a statement to AL.com<\/a>, the Alabama Department of Public Health said the state\u2019s Special SNAP for Women, Infants, and Children, otherwise known as WIC, will continue during the government shutdown. <\/p>\n \u201cCurrently, all WIC services, including appointments, benefits issuance, and nutrition education, remain available statewide,\u201d ADPH said in a statement. \u201cWIC and SNAP are different programs, and SNAP is not under the direction of ADPH. The only measure that ADPH has taken, at this time, is to move to a one-month benefit issuance frequency in order to continue serving our WIC Program participants.\u201d<\/p>\n Established in 1972, WIC provides free healthy foods, breastfeeding support, nutrition education, and referrals to other services to support the health of pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women, as well as infants and children up to age 5, according to the USDA website.<\/p>\n In 2024, over 111,000 Alabamians participated in the program, according to data from ADPH. <\/p>\n Earlier on Monday, the Alabama Department of Human Resources, which administers SNAP, said food stamps will be suspended in November<\/a>. <\/p>\n According to DHR, the United States Department of Agriculture issued a guidance that told them SNAP benefits would be suspended effective Nov. 1 until federal funding is provided or until states are directed otherwise.<\/p>\n The agency said recipients will be able to use benefits issued to their electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card prior to November 1, 2025, at any SNAP authorized retailer.<\/p>\n \u201cSNAP benefits are 100% federally funded; therefore USDA (FNS) controls the issuance of these benefits on EBT cards,\u201d said Alabama DHR Commissioner Nancy Buckner. \u201cWe know SNAP benefits are vitally important to the more than 750,000 Alabamians who depend on the more than $140 million in support each month. Alabama DHR, along with many others, hopes Congress will come to a quick resolution on the federal government shutdown.\u201d<\/p>\n In October, ADPH warned that WIC may be facing a similar threat, saying their funding was being impacted by the shutdown as well<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cWe can go for probably a couple of weeks, maybe three weeks or somewhere in that range,\u201d State Health Officer Scott Harris said on Oct. 7. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have some cost savings type mechanisms that we can resort to, if necessary, that might buy us a few more days beyond that. But at some point, the money is going to run out.\u201d<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The program providing food assistance to women, infants and children will remain operational even as food stamps from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-256015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}