Description

For all persons, WICELIGIBLE reports if there was at least 1 member of the family eligible for the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program during the previous calendar year. This includes family members that were children 0-5 years of age or females 12-55 years of age.

As stated in the field representative's manual, eligibility for WIC is based on the following four criteria (WICELIGIBLE is based only on age and sex as indicated above):

• Participants must be either a pregnant, postpartum, or breast-feeding woman, an infant, or a child under the age of five.

• The participant's household income must be below 185 percent of the poverty line.

• WIC participants must be certified by a health professional to be at nutritional risk, which can include problems such as: inadequate diet; abnormal weight gain during pregnancy, a history of high-risk pregnancy; child growth problems such as stunting, underweight, or anemia; and homelessness or migrancy.

• Any individual at nutritional risk who receives benefits from the Food Stamp Program, TANF/AFDC or Medicaid, or is a member of a family in which a pregnant woman or infant receives Medicaid benefits, is deemed automatically eligible to meet the WIC income test.

Comparability

There are no comparability issues with this variable.

Universe

Availability

• 2001-2018

Weights

• 2001-2018 : PERWEIGHT