The Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) was established by Congress as a pilot program in 1972 and authorized as a national program in 1974. WIC is a cost-effective federally funded preventive nutrition program that provides nutritious foods, nutrition education, and access to health care to low-income pregnant women, new mothers, and infants and children at nutritional risk.
WIC has greatly expanded since its inception, and, in April 2000, WIC enrolled approximately eight million participants at an annual cost of about four billion dollars. Since 1988, FNS has produced biennial reports on current participant and program characteristics in the WIC Program for general program monitoring as well as for managing the information needs of the program.
