Volume 38, Supplement 2003
Bitler, Marianne P., Janet Currie, and John Karl Scholz. 2003. "WIC Eligibility and Participation." Journal of Human Resources 38(S):1139-1179.
We examine WIC eligibility and participation using the Current Population Survey (CPS), the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), and state-level administrative data. Comparisons suggest significant undercounts in CPS and SIPP, although characteristics of WIC participants are similar to those in administrative data. This suggests that the undercount is approximately random, at least with respect to observables. WIC take-up is lower for children aged one to four, suggesting substantial scope for expanding participation by eligibles. States with stricter WIC-eligibility rules have lower participation, but a striking degree of state-to-state variation in participation rates remains unexplained.
Marianne P. Bitler is a Fellow in Population Studies and the Study of
Aging at RAND and IZA affiliate. Janet Currie is a full professor of economics
at the University of California, Los Angeles and an NBER affiliate. John Karl
Scholz is a full professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
directs the Institute for Research on Poverty, and is an NBER affiliate. They
are grateful to Molly Dahl for exceptionally helpful assistance, and for advice
from colleagues at the Economic Research. Service and Food and Nutrition Service
at the Department of Agriculture, Brian O'Hara, and the CPS staff at the Bureau
of the Census. They also are grateful for the advice and financial support from
David Betson, Shelly Ver Ploeg, and others on the Panel to Evaluate the USDA's
Methodology for Estimating Eligibility and Participation for the WIC Program at
the National Research Council. They thank Dawn Aldridge, Douglas Besharov, Anne
Gordon, Mark Nord, Stefanie Schmidt, participants in the IRP/ERS Conference on
Income Volatility and Implications for Food Assistance Programs, and two
anonymous referees for helpful comments. They remain responsible for all errors.
Bitler gratefully acknowledges financial support from the National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development and National Institute on Aging. Scholz
thanks the Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service for financial
support under cooperative agreement #43-3AEM-2-8005I. The data used in this
article can be obtained beginning May 2003 through April 2007 from Marianne
Bitler, RAND, 1700 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90407,
bitler@rand.org .
© 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X