WIC Racial-Ethnic Group Enrollment Data 2000

Racial/Ethnic Data Used in the Report

Racial/ethnic data reported to Abt Associates, Inc. for PC2000 was provided by 85 of the 88 WIC State agencies. The data are based on reports submitted by 2,207 WIC local agencies.

The state-maintained automated system from the PC2000 data set contained racial/ethnicity WIC enrollment information from five (5) categories which made up 99.0 percent of enrollment. The 5 categories were—American Indian/Alaska Native; Asian/Pacific; Black; Hispanic; and White. The remaining 1.0 percent was found in the Race Not Reported category. Caution should be used in comparing results across groups; missing data must always be considered in gauging differences between, among, or across groups or categories of WIC participants.

Please note that WIC enrollment differs from WIC participation. WIC enrollment is defined as individuals certified to receive WIC benefits for specific time periods, including individuals who did not claim or use the food instruments issued during those time periods. WIC participation is defined as the number of individuals who picked up food instruments during the designated time periods.

Highlights

April 2000 enrollment for the WIC Program totaled 7,855,514*. Of this total, Whites accounted for 2,935,852 (38%), Hispanics 2,773,803 (35%), Blacks 1,720,083 (22%), Asian/Pacific Islanders 259,390 (3%), American Indian/Alaska Native 112,285 (1%). The Race Not Reported category accounted for the remaining 54,101 (1%) of enrollment. The total Women enrolled in the WIC Program were 1,895,334 (24.1%), Infants 2,062,757 (26.3%), and Children 3,897,423 or (49.6%). A summary analysis (Table III) is included to show a comparison of enrollment data for 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2000.

* These data represent nearly complete counts of all women, infants, and children participating in the WIC Program as of April 2000. In a small number of cases, analytic weights continue to be needed to achieve accurate representation of each State and local agency caseload. The use of weights may result in individual counts being reported with decimal places. This report uses only whole numbers of individuals. Minor differences (3-6 individuals, depending on the level of aggregation) between counts reported here and counts reported in the Study of WIC Participant and Program Characteristics 2000. Report to Congress (FNS, July 2002) are due to rounding. For a more complete discussion of the WIC reporting system and analytic methodology, please see the above report, which is available at: http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic-participant-and-program-characteristics-2000