View Research by Author - Michael Martinez-Schiferl

Publications

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) provides supplemental nutritious foods, nutrition education, and referrals to other health, welfare, and social services. WIC eligibility is restricted to infants, children age 1 through 4, and pregnant and postpartum women with low incomes. This project uses 2010 Census data to estimate WIC eligibility for the nation, states, the District of Columbia, and territories. In 2010, 14.6 million individuals were eligible for WIC benefits in an average month, including 63.8 percent of all infants born. The share of individuals eligible for benefits that participates in WIC ranges widely across the states.

This brief compares the characteristics of the long-term unemployed with those of the recently unemployed. It also compares the long-term unemployed today with the long-term unemployed at the height of the recession to identify workers for whom the risk of long-term unemployment has increased. Older workers, women, and those with more education are less likely to become unemployed than other workers but, once they become unemployed, they are disproportionately more likely to experience long-term unemployment. In addition, older workers, women, and unmarried adults without children have made up increasingly larger shares of the long-term unemployed since the recession’s end.

A package of policies developed by Community Advocates Public Policy Institute - a nonprofit organization in Wisconsin—could reduce Wisconsin's poverty rate by 58 to 66 percent, depending on assumptions. The policies include a Senior and Disability Income Tax Credit, transitional jobs, an increase in the minimum wage to $8, and expansion of income tax credits related to earnings. Combining the new policies with full participation in existing entitlement programs reduces Wisconsin poverty by 81 percent. The analysis uses the American Community Survey, applying the proposed policies with the TRIM3 microsimulation model. Impacts are assessed with the Supplemental Poverty Measure.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides low-income pregnant women, postpartum mothers, infants, and children up to age 5 with select foods, nutrition education, and health care and government service referrals. WIC aims to improve the health of participants and prevent later health problems. This brief summarizes key features of the WIC program, including eligibility rules, participation, benefits, and administration. It presents the 2009 estimates of WIC eligibility and coverage for the nation and the states. Also summarized are recent improvements in WIC administrative practices and nutrition outcomes.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) provides supplemental nutritious foods, nutrition education, and referrals to other health, welfare, and social services. WIC eligibility is restricted to infants, children age 1 through 4, and pregnant and postpartum women who are either income or adjunctively eligible. This project extends WIC national eligibility estimates to single years of age for children, produces estimates for each State and the District of Columbia, and updates methods for estimating eligibility in the territories. The project also implemented calculation of standard errors of estimate for national, regional, State, and Puerto Rico estimates.

Safety net policies can dramatically reduce poverty. A full assessment requires use of a Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) that adds near-cash benefits and tax credits to cash income, deducts necessary expenses, and uses up-to-date, geographically-sensitive poverty thresholds. This analysis implements the SPM in Georgia, Illinois, and Massachusetts to examine the effects of the key safety net programs on poverty. The results show that safety net policies in these three states have substantially different effects on poverty, but federal programs narrow the differences across the states.

In 2008, safety net programs cut child poverty in half in Georgia, Illinois, and Massachusetts. Federal programs that provide the same benefit across the country reduce poverty more in lower housing cost states such as Georgia than in higher cost states such as Massachusetts. Massachusetts's generous TANF policy has a greater impact on child poverty than the TANF policies in the other two states. Estimates are produced using the Supplemental Poverty Measure.

Unemployment compensation (UC), a key part of the social safety net, is not individually reported in the American Community Survey (ACS), an issue for data users wishing to estimate the impact of UC on those in need. Using regression techniques, we predict the share of reported "other" income attributable to UC in the 2008 ACS data for Georgia, Illinois and Massachusetts. We review UC underreporting in the ACS data and discuss one possible method of correction using the Transfer Income Model, Version 3 (TRIM3). We demonstrate the effect of the UC underreporting correction on the poverty rate and poverty gap.

In 2009, nearly 1 in every 5 children in the United States lived in families that used emergency food assistance through Feeding America, the nation's largest organization of emergency food providers. Higher shares of Hispanic and black children used emergency food assistance than white children, reflecting their higher rates of poverty. While the majority of families using emergency food assistance also accessed at least one of the federal nutrition assistance programs, only one in four received food stamps. The high demand for private food assistance demonstrates the extreme need in 2009 caused by high unemployment and poverty.

Families that use emergency food assistance often also get help from federal nutrition programs. Hispanic families less often receive help through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called food stamps) than families of other racial/ethnic groups placing them at greater nutritional risk. Families that do not receive SNAP benefits often think that their income, assets or citizenship status makes them ineligible. The broad use of food banks and pantries among low-income families with children demonstrates unmet nutritional needs and confirms that enhancements to the federal nutrition safety net are needed.

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