Identifying the Effects of WIC on Food Insecurity Among Infants and Children

Abstract

The Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program is considered a crucial component of the social safety net in the United States, yet there is limited supporting evidence on the effects of WIC on the nutritional well-being and food security of infants and young children. Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, we apply recently developed partial identification methods to jointly account for unobserved counterfactual outcomes and systematic underreporting of WIC participation. Under nonparametric assumptions, we find that WIC reduces the prevalence of child food insecurity by at least 3.6 percentage points (20%).