This memorandum seeks to ensure that current Food and Nutrition Service guidance pertaining to federal civil rights and nondiscrimination obligations remains aligned with applicable laws, regulations, executive orders and directives relevant to the agency’s 16 nutrition assistance programs.
This notice sets forth the interpretation that the U.S. Department of Agriculture uses for the term “Federal public benefit” as used in Title IV of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. In doing so, this notice supersedes any prior interpretation in any notice or other document issued by any USDA agency. This notice also describes and preliminarily identifies the USDA programs that provide “Federal public benefits” within the scope of PRWORA.
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA), which was signed into law in March 2021, provided USDA with $390 million and waiver authority for outreach, innovation, and program modernization in WIC and the WIC Farmers' Market Nutrition Program. FNS is interested in understanding the implementation and outcomes related to these modernization efforts.
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.
The WIC Vendor Management Study: 2015 Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) Pilot examined compliance with program requirements and rates of violations among WIC EBT vendors in 2015 and tested a method to identify and measure errors that contribute to improper payments in an EBT environment.
This report supplements FNS administrative data on total food costs by estimating the average monthly food costs for each WIC participant category and food package type. It also estimates total pre- and post-rebate dollars spent on 18 major categories of WIC-eligible foods in FY 2018.
GAO Report to Congressional Committees on Food Assistance: Financial Information on WIC Nutrition Services and Administrative Costs