WIC

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides vouchers for food and formula to low-income mothers and children deemed to be at nutritional risk. The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), a division of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), administers WIC.

Examples

How WIC values depend on income

Consider a pregnant woman in Oregon whose husband has no income, and whom a WIC office has deemed to be at nutritional risk.

from policyengine_us import IndividualSim
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import plotly.express as px

sim = IndividualSim(year=2022)
sim.add_person(
    name="mother",
    is_pregnant=True,
    is_wic_at_nutritional_risk=True,
    would_claim_wic=True,
)
sim.add_person(name="father")
sim.add_spm_unit(members=["mother", "father"])
sim.add_household(members=["mother", "father"], state_code="OR")

sim.vary("employment_income", max=4_000 * 12)

df = pd.DataFrame(
    dict(
        employment_income=sim.calc("employment_income")[0] / 12,
        wic=sim.calc("wic")[0] / 12,
    )
)


LABELS = dict(
    age="Child age",
    is_breastfeeding="Breastfeeding",
    wic="Monthly WIC benefit value",
    employment_income="Monthly earnings",
)

fig = px.line(
    df,
    "employment_income",
    "wic",
    labels=LABELS,
    title="WIC benefits by earnings for a married pregnant woman in Oregon",
)
fig.update_layout(xaxis_tickformat="$,", yaxis_tickformat="$,")
fig.show()