FNS Documents & Resources

Since FY 2022, FNS has awarded over $9 million in grants to 37 State agencies to support WIC FMNP eSolutions.

The USDA, FDA, and other federal partners continue to work diligently to protect the health infants who are fed using infant formula. 

As part of the WIC innovation and modernization efforts to be funded under ARPA, FNS is supporting planning and implementation projects focused on enhancements that improve the WIC participant experience, as evidenced by enhancing the WIC shopping experience, increasing participant enrollment, reducing unnecessary administrative burden for both participants and administrators, including through data matching to streamline enrollment, and retaining eligible participants while improving equity

This is a new information collection for WIC and WIC Farmers' Market Nutrition Program which contains the reporting burden associated with requesting waivers authorized under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and the American Baby Formula Act of 2022.

The physical presence waiver, issued under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020, allowed WIC state and local agencies to remotely certify participants into WIC during the COVID-19 pandemic. This report summarizes data collected from surveys of WIC state and local agencies about the use of the physical presence waiver and the impact it had on WIC services.

Under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020, the USDA FNS issued certain programmatic waivers to state agencies to support continued access to WIC services and provide flexibilities to some administrative requirements. This brief report summarizes findings about the use and impact of these waivers from surveys of WIC state and local agencies.

This letter provides WIC state agencies the opportunity to opt into waivers to modernize WIC through building or enhancing remote services.

On Nov. 8, 2022, FNS published WIC Policy Memorandum #2023-1 Abbott Infant Formula Waiver Expiration Schedule which extended active waivers to Jan. 31, 2023, or 60 days after the end of the Presidentially-declared COVID-19 major disaster declaration in the affected area, whichever is sooner. However, FNS recognizes that WIC state agencies may need additional flexibility to ensure uninterrupted access to infant formula for WIC families even as WIC state agencies transition back to normal operations. The intent of this policy memorandum is to formally describe the timeline for this transition, as previously described in the Dec. 19, 2022 letter to state agencies.