Pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding women, infants, and children up to age 5 are eligible. They must meet income guidelines, a state residency requirement, and be individually determined to be at "nutritional risk" by a health professional.
This letter provides WIC state agencies the opportunity to opt into waivers to modernize WIC through building or enhancing remote services.
On Nov. 8, 2022, FNS published WIC Policy Memorandum #2023-1 Abbott Infant Formula Waiver Expiration Schedule which extended active waivers to Jan. 31, 2023, or 60 days after the end of the Presidentially-declared COVID-19 major disaster declaration in the affected area, whichever is sooner. However, FNS recognizes that WIC state agencies may need additional flexibility to ensure uninterrupted access to infant formula for WIC families even as WIC state agencies transition back to normal operations. The intent of this policy memorandum is to formally describe the timeline for this transition, as previously described in the Dec. 19, 2022 letter to state agencies.
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (the Act), PL 111-296, established a new reporting requirement for the WIC Program. USDA is now mandated to compile and publish annually, breastfeeding performance measurements based on program participant data on the number of partially and fully breastfed infants for each WIC state and local agency.
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.
The WIC Food Cost-Containment Practices Study describes the voluntarily approaches state agencies used in 2018 to reduce food costs when selecting and authorizing WIC foods. This study is the second of its kind; the first was conducted by the USDA Economic Research Service in 2003. This report examines how six types of food cost-containment practices are associated with food costs and WIC participant satisfaction, benefit redemption, and food consumption in 12 state agencies.
FNS encourages WIC state agencies to work collaboratively with the vendor community to identify how state agency vendor selection and/or limiting criteria, application periods or policies, WIC authorized food lists, technology requirements, and participant access criteria may impact vendor participation in the WIC program.
This report presents statistics from the survey that cover household food security, food expenditures, and use of federal nutrition assistance programs in 2021.
This memorandum provides state agencies with guidance for issuing the monthly Cash-Value Voucher/Benefit (CVV/B) for fruit and vegetable purchases to participants in WIC for FY 2023.
USDA's nutrition assistance programs touch the lives of one in four American consumers annually and the nutrition education efforts associated with select programs offer a powerful opportunity to promote food security and improve dietary quality among eligible individuals and families.