NWA Monday Morning Report for January 25, 2016
In This Issue
Register Now for the Upcoming Leadership Conference!
Thank You of the Week
Legislative Update
Aldi Becomes First U.S. Chain to Pledge to Switch to Healthier Checkout
Affordable Care Act Federal Upper Limits
FNS Report on Eligible Participants
Sugar Sweetened Beverages Study
Volunteer Opportunities
Career Corner
NWA Calendar
Register Now for the Upcoming Leadership Conference!
We at NWA—with your help—are hoping to make his year’s Washington Leadership Conference the
best Leadership Conference yet! The format of this year’s conference, which will take place from
February 28-March 1 in Washington, DC, will be slightly different from previous years, with two full days
of WIC leadership training at the Westin Georgetown and one day of policy discussions, research panels,
and Congressional visits on Capitol Hill. Trainings will focus on WIC policy (both Congressional and
USDA), communications and messaging, local advocacy, partnership building, crisis management, and
other topics. We are hoping that each and every attendee, whether this is your first Leadership
Conference or your twentieth, will come away feeling like you have the tools, knowledge, and
confidence to be a strong WIC advocate in your community.
We are excited to announce that we have updated our Leadership Conference agenda! In the most
recent agenda, you will find some exciting additions:
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Day One of the conference will end with an activity called “WIC Olympics.” This will be a game
show in which questions will focus on WIC messaging and advocacy. There will be prizes for the
winners!
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Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, has accepted our
invitation to speak on Day Three of the conference! He will be providing his perspective on WIC
and Child Nutrition Reauthorization.
For our IOM Panel Discussion on Day Three, the Study Director of the IOM Review of the WIC
Food Package, Marie Latuilippe, will serve as one of the panelists, along with Melissa Abelev and
Anne Bartholomew from FNS.
Read through the latest tentative agenda and register today!
Dates to remember:
• Hotel room block rate cut-off date is today, January 27 at 5:00 Eastern time. Make your
reservation online today.
• Register now through February 14 for lower rates. Registration rates increase after February 14,
2016.
Thank You of the Week
Your commitment to mothers and young children powerfully impacts our nation’s families. Here is one
WIC participant’s reflection on the good work that you do:
WIC was a program that I never knew about until I had my son three years ago. As a new mother,
I needed all the help and advice possible. The WIC program has been very helpful to my family.
The classes provided at Jackson County Health Department are invaluable – I learn something new
every time which helps me and my child to live a healthier, and ultimately, happier life. I am
thankful each time I use the coupons and especially the ones for the Farmers’ Market. My son
looks forward to the market each week. Thank you for hosting the program – it is truly a great
help for my family. --WIC Participant, IL
Legislative Update
Child Nutrition Reauthorization Update: The National WIC Association applauds Senate Agriculture
Committee Chairman Roberts (R-KS) and Ranking Member Stabenow (D-MI) for their leadership and
teamwork with Members of both parties on the Committee to create a strong, bi-partisan Child
Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization bill. The bill was passed last Wednesday during a Senate Agriculture
Committee markup and now awaits passage in the full Senate. House Education and the Workforce
Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) has said he intends to move similar legislation through his
committee, which is in charge of drafting child nutrition legislation in the House.
The Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill, once passed in the Senate and House, will set policies to
strengthen the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and
other child nutrition programs for 5 years.
The current Senate bill includes provisions from the Wise Investment in our Children Act, also known as
the WIC Act, sponsored by Senator Casey (D-PA), giving states the option to enroll children in WIC until
their sixth birthday or until they enter full day kindergarten. Currently, eligibility for WIC terminates on a
child's 5th birthday. The bill also gives states the option to certify infants for up two years, reducing a
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barrier to child participation in the program. Additionally, the bill authorizes $25 million/year more for
funding to help all states implement electronic benefit (EBT) systems by 2020. EBT systems streamline
vendor participation and management, provide a new program oversight tool, and improve the WIC
client experience.
“This bill advances WIC’s 40 years of nutrition success for America’s vulnerable mothers and young
children,” said Janet Jackson Charles, Chair, NWA Board of Directors.
"While there is still more to be done, there are meaningful wins for mothers and children in this bill that
should help close the nutrition gap for WIC families so that young children arrive at school ready to
learn,” said the Rev. Douglas A. Greenaway, President & CEO of the National WIC Association. “We are
pleased to support this bipartisan effort and urge the Committee and the Senate to move the bill with all
deliberate speed.”
We will keep you informed of the bill’s movement through the Senate as well as the progress of child
nutrition legislation in the House.
Aldi Becomes First U.S. Chain to Pledge to Switch to Healthier Checkout
Last week, the discount grocery chain Aldi, which operates nearly 1,500 stores in the U.S., announced it
will be making all checkout aisles in all stores healthier by the end of 2016.
Aldi is the first U.S. retail chain to agree to remove candy in all of its checkout aisles. Instead, Aldi’s
Healthier Checklanes will offer items with reduced calories, saturated fat, sugars, and sodium, including
dried fruit and nuts.
Affordable Care Act Federal Upper Limits
Medicaid has announced they will be published the final Affordable Care Act Federal Upper Limits for
source drugs. Learn more about the Federal Upper Limits on Medicaid's website.
FNS Report on Eligible Participants
In December, FNS released a new report about estimated WIC eligibles and program reach. You can read
it here. Some of the most interesting things directly from the report are:
• For the first time in this series of reports, the State estimates are shown separately for two
subgroups: children ages 1 through 4, and all infants and women.
• In calendar year (CY) 2013, the methods described above suggest that 14.2 million individuals
were eligible for WIC benefits in an average month (Exhibit ES.1). This is an estimate and could
differ from the true number of WIC eligibles because of methodological limitations (for example,
the adjustment for partial-year eligibility is an approximation) and because the estimate is based
on a sample of the population (different samples could lead to different estimates). Considering
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potential errors due to the sample (sample variability), there is a 90 percent likelihood that the
true number of WIC eligibles falls in the range from 13.6 million to 14.7 million.
Infants accounted for 16.8 percent of the total WIC-eligible individuals;
children ages 1 through 4 comprised 63.8 percent of all eligible individuals (with approximately
equal shares across the single years of age);
pregnant women accounted for 8.7 percent;
the remaining 10.7 percent were postpartum women.
Estimating the number of people who are eligible for WIC allows an estimation of WIC coverage
rates—the percent of WIC-eligible people who receive benefits from the program.
During CY 2013, 8.5 million individuals participated in the program in an average month,
producing a total coverage rate (participants divided by eligibles) of 60.2 percent.
Coverage rates vary across the subgroups.
The coverage rate for children was estimated at 49.8 percent, lower than the rates for other
eligible groups.
Infants and postpartum non-breastfeeding women had the highest coverage rates at 84.4 and
84.9 percent, respectively.
Sugar Sweetened Beverages Study
A new study published in Pediatrics predicts that health warning labels on sugar sweetened beverages
would significantly decrease the likelihood that parents will buy them for their kids. Funded by the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Healthy Eating Research program, this is among the first studies to
examine the influence of warning labels on sugary drinks.
RWJF’s press release on the study is here.
Volunteer Opportunities
View our current openings in NWA’s Committees and Task Forces! Participating helps you grow
professionally, build lasting, networking relationships with your peers, and shape important policies for
the future of WIC and WIC moms and young children.
We welcome your participation. If you have a particular interest or expertise and wish to volunteer,
please contact your NWA Board Representative or Robert A. Lee at [email protected]/202-232-5492.
Career Corner
Current opportunities are also available on our WIC Job Postings page.
• Program Analyst, USDA, VA
• Supervisor, Public Health Nutrition, CA
• Nutritionist, MA
• Program Director, MA
• Director of Nutrition Services, CA
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NWA Calendar
2016 Washington Leadership Conference in Washington, DC February 28 - March 1
2016 Annual Education and Training Conference & Exhibits in Cincinnati, OH May 22 - 25, 2016
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NWA's mission: NWA inspires and empowers the WIC community to advocate for and promote quality
nutrition services for all eligible mothers and young children, and assure effective management of WIC.
National WIC Association 2001 S Street, NW, Suite 580 Washington, DC 20009 TEL 202.232.5492 FAX 202.387.5281
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