The effect of aging out of the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program on food insecurity
Seung Jin Cho
Abstract
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) are designed to increase food security and reduce hunger for children from low-income households. Since the cutoff age for WIC is five, and school enrollment is required for receiving free or reduced-price NSLP, some children from low-income households cannot receive both WIC and free or reduced-price NSLP. Using data from the Current Population Survey, the partial identification method developed in this paper addresses the problems of self-selection into WIC and systematic underreporting of program participation. Due to this loophole in food assistance programs for children, aging out of WIC is found to increase child food insecurity by at least 1.1 percentage points. This result indicates that the prevalence of child food insecurity would decline by 15% if WIC extended its cutoff age until children enroll in kindergarten.