update - October 2003

Balancing Food Costs with Nutrition Goals in WIC

Many States have employed a variety of restrictions on retail stores and food items to reduce food costs for USDA's third-largest food assistance program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Can States control costs while meeting WIC nutrition and health goals?

Phil R. Kaufman

U.S. Tobacco Industry Responding to New Competitors, New Challenges

U.S. tobacco, which is more expensive in part due to the Federal tobacco program, has been supplanted in many markets by cheaper foreign leaf of increasing quality. Can the tobacco program, after 65 years, be retooled to address this reality?

Thomas Capehart, Jr

Multilateralism and Regionalism: Dual Strategies for Trade Reform

The U.S. is pursuing trade liberalization through regional agreements, such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and multilateral negotiations at the World Trade Organization. Why does the U.S. do both simultaneously?

Mary E. Burfisher
Steven Zahniser

Nonmetro Poverty: Assessing the
Effect of the 1990s

The 1990s ushered in unprecedented economic prosperity and major welfare system reforms in the United States. The nonmetro poverty rate fell, but inched back up in 2001. Will nonmetro poverty resume its downward pattern in the 21st century?

Dean Jolliffe

Production Costs Critical to Farming Decisions

Weather, breeding cycles,world stocks, and consumption swings can all make for uncertain farm income, but farmers make a host of production decisions that can affect costs and predispose them to weathering out rough patches. What are these decisions and to what extent are U.S. farmers covering costs?

William McBride