Women, Infants, and Children
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is a targeted nutrition program aiding pregnant and postpartum women, infants, and children through the age of 4. Households at or below 185% of the federal poverty line are eligible. Michigan's WIC program served 321,001 women and children who purchased over $133 million of healthy food from authorized vendors.
WIC benefits are numerous, including nutrition counseling, health monitoring, food benefits, and even focused counseling on topics such as breastfeeding. WIC clinics can also make referrals to healthcare services to ensure families have access to necessary medical care, including childhood immunizations and prenatal care.
Extensive research has demonstrated the effectiveness of WIC in improving outcomes for mothers and children during critical developmental stages. WIC reduces premature births and low birth weight babies, improves diet quality, and increases families’ access to health care.
**Feeding MI Families concluded data collection prior to April 2024, when many changes to the WIC food package were announced. Some of these changes align with the requests Feeding MI Families’ parents had of the program. We look forward to seeing the positive impacts of these recent changes in years to come.
WIC Participation among Feeding MI Families Participants
The figure below shows participation rates for WIC. We see many fewer disparities in WIC participation than we saw for SNAP/FAP participation, likely because WIC has a higher income eligibility cutoff than SNAP/FAP and immigration status does not affect your ability to receive WIC benefits.
What We Learned
Across all food assistance programs, participants consistently rated WIC the highest in satisfaction across all sociodemographic groups. When asked how WIC could be improved, parents most commonly requested more WIC-eligible food options and expanded package sizes due to difficulties in finding specific items in stores. The second most common response was to increase and modify benefits for greater flexibility, such as allowing benefits to roll over between months. Many parents also expressed frustration with the WIC shopping experience, describing that it was common for WIC-eligible items to ring up incorrectly at checkout.
Recommendations
Stigma and Discrimination are Central Barriers to Food Security
- Incorrect labeling, lack of stock, and errors at checkout make redeeming benefits difficult and stressful for parents. Improving the WIC shopping experience by improving staff training, store signage, and point-of-sale devices would decrease the stigma of using WIC.
- Parents would love to have the ability to use WIC to pay for eligible foods purchased online. Although this does not remove all barriers to redeeming benefits and many parents will still prefer shopping in-person, families will be more likely to stay enrolled in WIC as their children move out of infancy if they could shop online when needed.
Small Modifications Make Big Differences to Families
- Many parents are aware of WIC and most eligible families participated in WIC when their children were infants. Increasing programmatic flexibilities including expanding food package options and allowing benefits to roll over between months would make the program more useful to parents of older children.
- Parents want more variety in which formulas are eligible for purchase with WIC. This is particularly important for families shopping at small, local stores that are often out of stock of specific formula brands and sizes.
- Attending appointments in person is difficult for some families, especially as they have more children and they get older. Parents appreciated COVID-era flexibilities, the ability to complete education online, and would like these options to become permanent.
Families Want Dignified Access to Fresh and Safe Produce, Proteins, and Dairy Products
- Parents see WIC as a critical program for providing their families with fresh produce. Overall, they are extremely grateful for the benefits.
- Expanding the food types, brands, and allowable package sizes of WIC-eligible foods would ensure that families could more fully redeem their benefits.