The Effect of WIC on Parents

Results are pending the disclosure avoidance review required by the U.S. Census Bureau and currently replaced by “XX” in the text; this article will be updated prior to AAEA2026with full results. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides nutritious food for children under age 5, serving about 50% of all infants born in the United States. At age 1, the value of the food basket decreases, and at age 5, when eligibility for WIC ends, approximately 15% of all children in the United States are still on the program. With a large sample of linked state and federal administrative microdata, we use a regression discontinuity design (RDD) based on those age 1 and 5 cutoffs to identify direct causal effects on health and labor market outcomes for WIC parents. We then find that, while fathers do not change labor market behavior when losing WIC, mothers are XX% more likely to search for employment. We then directly test potential mechanisms for these health and labor effects, namely food security, educational enrollment, migration, and household formation. Labor market effects of the mother are XX% driven by XX, while XX does not explain the findings. Throughout the article, we test for gender disparities in the effects of losing WIC on parents, finding XX. Finally, we test the external validity of all results to a smaller decrease in the value of WIC food benefits that occurs at age 1, using another RDD. This research thus greatly enhances our understanding of the causal effects of WIC on parents in particular, and provides broad evidence for means-tested food security programs in general, for which policymakers justify eligibility limitations based on concerns related to labor market distortions.