The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is the major purchaser of infant formula in the United States. To reduce the cost of infant formula to WIC, Federal law requires that WIC State agencies operate a costcontainment system for the purchase of infant...

Food stamp recipients, like other Americans, struggle with nutrition problems associated with choice of foods, as well as amounts. This series of Economic Information Bulletins compiles evidence to help answer the question of whether the Food Stamp Program can do more to improve the food choices...

The Food Stamp Program provides benefits that low-income households can use to purchase food in grocery stores. The rise in obesity has raised the question of whether food stamp participants would purchase more healthy foods, such as fruits and vegetables, if food stamp benefits were higher....

Currently, the effects of the Food Stamp Program on the food choices and diet quality of participants are the subject of much debate. Improved evaluation of the nutrition and health effects of the program would be of use to program and policy officials, but most of the existing research is...

Federal expenditures for USDA's food assistance programs totaled almost $54.3 billion in fiscal 2007, over 2 percent more than in the previous fiscal year. This rise marked the seventh consecutive year in which food assistance expenditures increased and the fifth consecutive year in which they...

This report uses preliminary administrative data from USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), the agency responsible for managing the programs, to examine trends in the food and nutrition assistance programs through fi scal 2013 (October 1, 2012 to September 30, 2013). The report uses ERS...

This report examines trends in USDA’s food and nutrition assistance programs through fiscal 2009. It also discusses a recent ERS report that examines the prevalence, severity, and characteristics of food insecurity in households with children.

Federal expenditures for USDA’s food assistance programs totaled almost $53 billion in fiscal 2006, a 4-percent increase over the previous fiscal year. This was the sixth consecutive year in which food assistance expenditures increased and the fourth consecutive year in which they exceeded the...

This study, based on 1976-2010 data, examines the relationship between U.S. economic conditions and participation in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s five largest nutrition assistance programs. It also describes how changes in program policy and other factors may have influenced this...

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides supplemental food, nutrition education (including breastfeeding promotion and support), and referrals to health care and other social services to low-income, nutritionally at-risk women, infants, and...