(NAFB) – USDA’s Economic Research Service reports an increase in participants in the Women, Infants and Children, or WIC program, in 2022.

The increase represents the first growth in the program in more than a decade. Participation averaged 6.26 million people a month, up from 6.24 million a month in fiscal year 2021. This was the first increase in overall participation since the record high 9.18 million in fiscal year 2010. Women participants increased by 1.5 percent in fiscal year 2022 after declining for the previous 12 fiscal years, whereas infant participants continued to decline.

Declines in the number of births in the United States, beginning in 2008, may be a factor in drops in infant participation, according to USDA. WIC provides supplemental food packages, nutrition education, breastfeeding support, and health care referrals at no cost to low-income pregnant and postpartum women, infants younger than one-year-old, and children one to five years old who are at nutritional risk.