Updates

What Happens When the USDA Stops Reporting on Food Insecurity? 

October 24, 2025

Published by Nora Thomas

As of September 20th, 2025, the USDA has terminated future Household Food Security Reports. This annual report was essential for tracking food insecurity, understanding who is impacted, informing policy, and providing grantmakers with pivotal information.

This is a big deal. Let’s unpack the lasting impacts that the report’s cancellation will have, and the ways that we can continue to expand and protect food access in its absence. 

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been conducting Household Food Insecurity Reports every year for the last 30 years. Beginning during the Clinton administration, the surveys were conducted with the goal of informing government food assistance eligibility and benefit allotments. 

Each December, the USDA gathered data on food insecurity through a supplemental survey conducted by the Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, in addition to their population survey. Then, the USDA Economic Research Service analyzed the data.

The survey asked a wide range of questions about income, spending, food security, food anxiety, nutrition/balanced meals, and hunger, with a special focus on childhood food security.

Example of Questions from the 2023 Household Security Survey

On September 20th, 2025, the U.S. The Department of Agriculture announced the termination of future Household Food Security Reports, publishing this statement on their website:

“These redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous studies do nothing more than fear monger. For 30 years, this study—initially created by the Clinton administration as a means to support the increase of SNAP eligibility and benefit allotments—failed to present anything more than subjective, liberal fodder. Trends in the prevalence of food insecurity have remained virtually unchanged, regardless of an over 87% increase in SNAP spending between 2019 – 2023.”

Experts disagree with these claims. Megan Lott, deputy director for the Healthy Eating Research program at Duke University, argues the report is not redundant because it is the most comprehensive data on food security that we have.

The argument that the report is political is also debated. Republican and Democratic presidents have conducted the food security report since its start in 1995. The survey did not serve partisan political agendas, but acted as a source of reliable information for all policymakers and grantors.

Finally, while the USDA claims that SNAP program costs have increased by 87% since 2019, food insecurity also rose by 3.5%. At this time, families struggled more than usual due to the COVID-19 pandemic and lingering economic inflation. Again, this is a conservative percentage change, but it represents 12.2 million people. Additionally, participation in these programs increased during this time, indicating that spending increases were necessary.

USDA published chart illustrating SNAP spending and participation from 2000-2024.

Using the USDA’s public data supplement to this chart, evidence suggests that inflation-adjusted spending only increased by 60.8% between 2019 and 2023, not 87%. It is unclear how the USDA reached its calculation, but they could have used data without inflation adjustments or included private data. 

All in all, experts in the field are actively challenging the USDA’s statement that the report was “redundant, politicized, and subjective.” 

The report tracked food insecurity prevalence, as well as changes in food insecurity over time. This information helped government officials create effective policies to support food access and combat hunger.

The primary food assistance provided across the nation by the US government is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Each year, based on the data regarding food insecurity rates, the government could effectively expand eligibility and benefits for these programs. The data also allowed the government to track whether programs like these improved food security.

The termination of the report follows directly after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act cut 187 billion from the SNAP budget, which will cut food assistance for an estimated 4 million individuals. This means we won’t be able to see nationally-scaled data representing the impacts of the largest budget cut to SNAP in the program’s 61 year history. 

In order to make effective policies and target localities for programs, lawmakers need data on hunger prevalence and who is most impacted. The data, in turn, illustrates to policymakers whether certain laws positively or negatively impacted food security. While SNAP and WIC are the biggest examples by individual participation, this also includes practices like providing free meals in public schools, emergency food assistance programs, and more. The Household Food Security Report was the most comprehensive data source for food security in the United States.

“Without that data, we are flying blind, and we don’t know the impact.”

-Cyrus Fitzsimmons, president of the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC)

Nonprofit organizations rely heavily on government grants to fund their efforts. For food-distributing nonprofits to receive grants, it is critical to provide concrete data and demonstrate the need for food assistance using the food security report. Nonprofits will likely struggle to secure the grants they need to support their food programs unless they have access to reputable, local surveys and data.

Nonprofits struggling to get necessary food program funding at the same time that the government is decreasing support for food assistance programs spells incoming disaster for our community.

USDA published graph illustrating household food security in 2023.

It is important to look at patterns in the data, as well. Food insecurity was also statistically significantly higher than the national average for households with children, households headed by a single parent, women living alone, households with Black and Hispanic householders, and households with income below 100% of the poverty level.

The racial gap in food insecurity is striking: 13.3% of households with a white household reference person experienced food insecurity, compared to 27.5% of households with a Black, non-Hispanic household reference person, and 26% of households with a Hispanic household reference person. Food insecurity is a systemic issue that disproportionally impacts communities of color. Without this data, these patterns are much more difficult to track, illustrate, and address through policy. 

Despite the USDA’s recent claim that “food security trends have remained virtually unchanged”, they also reported that “the 2023 prevalence of food insecurity (13.5 percent) was statistically significantly higher than the 2022 prevalence of 12.8 percent”. Looking at the data like this, it can be easy to minimize it. However, in the context of the US population size, that’s 2,800,000 more people who struggled to get meals on the table for their family. 

The data gathered and published in the annual household food security report are more than numbers. They represent real people, struggling to access food and get the nutrients they need. Without this report, hunger is not solved, but hidden. We must take action to protect food assistance efforts in the United States and fight food insecurity. There are a couple of ways we can do this. 

nonprofits

Nonprofits need your support, now more than ever. As federal funding is being cut, non-profits need supplemental funding to continue operating. Plus, as federal assistance is being cut, people are increasingly relying on nonprofits for support. Some nonprofits, like We Don’t Waste, work to improve food access in the community. Other nonprofits, like Hunger Free Colorado and the Colorado Health Institute, conduct local and statewide food surveys, which are especially important while the government is not reporting, because they help bridge the gap.

Policy

Advocate

Advocate for the Household Food Security Report! This data is essential. Contact your representatives and urge them to continue publishing data on food security.