WIC-Only Stores and Competitive Pricing in the WIC Program

Publication Date: May 2004

Publisher: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): Robert Greenstein

Research Area: Health; Social conditions

Keywords: Food costs; Economic inequality; Income diversity; Financial projections

Type: Report

Abstract:

Over the past decade, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) has successfully leveraged market forces to contain program costs. Food prices have risen by 28 percent over the last ten years while WIC food costs have grown by only 18 percent. If left unchecked, however, a growing phenomenon in the WIC program the spread of "WIC-only stores" could compromise this cost-containment success and drive up WIC food costs significantly. Although WIC-only stores currently are concentrated in a handful of states, they account for about 40 percent of WIC food voucher redemptions in California and more than nine percent of WIC food voucher redemptions nationwide, and their share of WIC food sales has been growing at a substantial rate.