The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, better known as WIC, was created in 1972 through an amendment to the Child Nutrition Act of 1966. The program offers a package of supplemental foods, nutrition education and free health-care referrals to low-income mothers and young children who are at nutritional risk. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture changed its methodology for estimating the number of WIC eligibles, which has led to a roughly 20 percentage point increase in the population estimated to be eligible for WIC, compared to the previously used methodology.
In 1980, about 9 percent of all people in eligible demographic categories received WIC benefits, including about 15 percent of infants, about 8 percent of all children ages one to four, about 9 percent of all pregnant women and about 8 percent of all postpartum or breast-feeding women. By 2014, about 32 percent of all people in eligible demographic categories received WIC benefits, including about 49 percent of infants, about 27 percent of all children ages one to four, about 27 percent of all pregnant women and about 39 percent of all postpartum or breast-feeding women.
In 1977, WIC enrollment equaled only about 11 percent of all demographically eligible people in families with annual incomes below 185 percent of poverty. The number of infants on WIC represented only about 17 percent of the infants in families with annual incomes below 185 percent of poverty. By 2012, WIC enrollment equaled about 77 percent of all demographically eligible people in families with annual incomes below 185 percent of poverty. There were 17 percent more WIC infants than infants in families with annual incomes below 185 percent of poverty.
This paper explains the growth in WIC’s eligibility and enrollment as the products of liberalized and informal interpretations of eligibility rules by WIC staff and officials at all levels of government. The growth in eligibility and enrollment also stem from formal congressional actions that extended the length of WIC certification periods for children, as well as the failure by Congress to cap income eligibility for WIC recipients who are adjunctively eligible.
The USDA’s original methodology for estimating WIC eligibility was surely too constricted, and some of the changes made were long overdue. But the failure to respect the spirit of this statutory benchmark has worsened WIC’s already poor targeting. Instead of enriching the services WIC can deliver, the funds added to the program have been used to expand coverage to higher income families and households. The way in which eligibility has been liberalized is deeply unfair to those families and income-sharing households whose incomes are just above 185 percent of poverty.
For 2013, we estimate that between 71 and 81 percent of all American infants would have been WIC eligible, with similar increases for WIC’s other demographic categories. This percentage may continue to increase as states continue to raise Medicaid income eligibility caps, which automatically increases the number of adjunctively eligible families and income-sharing households. In fact, according to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey for 2014, about 8 percent of WIC infants lived in families with annual incomes above 300 percent of poverty (for a family of three, about $59,370).
The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for both state and federal policymakers to better gauge and control the expansions in the program’s eligibility and enrollment. Policymakers, administrators and the public need a better understanding of the nature and application of income-eligibility rules across the panoply of means-tested programs.
