Secretary of Agriculture, do hereby proclaim August 1–7, 2023, as National WIC Breastfeeding Week.
As part of the WIC innovation and modernization efforts to be funded under ARPA, FNS is supporting planning and implementation projects focused on enhancements that improve the WIC participant experience, as evidenced by enhancing the WIC shopping experience, increasing participant enrollment, reducing unnecessary administrative burden for both participants and administrators, including through data matching to streamline enrollment, and retaining eligible participants while improving equity
The physical presence waiver, issued under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020, allowed WIC state and local agencies to remotely certify participants into WIC during the COVID-19 pandemic. This report summarizes data collected from surveys of WIC state and local agencies about the use of the physical presence waiver and the impact it had on WIC services.
Under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020, the USDA FNS issued certain programmatic waivers to state agencies to support continued access to WIC services and provide flexibilities to some administrative requirements. This brief report summarizes findings about the use and impact of these waivers from surveys of WIC state and local agencies.
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 provided USDA with $390 million, available through FY 2024, to carry out outreach, innovation, and program modernization efforts to increase participation and redemption of benefits for both the WIC program and the WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program.
These graphics, the latest in a series of annual reports on WIC eligibility, present 2020 national and state estimates of the number of people eligible for WIC benefits and the percentages of the eligible population and the US population covered by the program, including estimates by participant category.
In FY 2022, FNS awarded $23,100,000.00 in grants to 66 WIC state agencies to support planning and implementation of projects to improve the WIC participant experience. State agencies each received $350,000.00 in funding to work on multiple types of projects.
FNS awarded grants to WIC state agencies to tackle the WIC shopping experience from every angle—from improving in store signage and cashier training, to working toward online shopping.
Enrollment for the WIC Program in April 2018 totaled 7,837,672. Of this total, Whites accounted for 58.81%, Blacks/African Americans 21.54%, American Indian/Alaskan Natives 8.88%, Multiple Race 6.08%, Asians 3.78%, Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders 0.81%.
This report, the latest in a series of annual reports on WIC eligibility, presents 2014 national and state estimates of the number of people eligible for WIC benefits and the percent of the eligible population covered by the program, including estimates by participant category.