The annual survey of food insecurity in the United States which has been conducted for three decades by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will be terminated for 2025. The results of the 2024 survey are scheduled to be released on October 22, 2025, but any data collected in 2025 will not be published or analyzed. The most recent complete study consists of data collected in 2023. The USDA released a statement explaining, “These redundant, costly, politicized and extraneous studies do nothing more than fearmonger.”
Food insecurity in America has reached its highest rate in at least a decade, with more than 47 million people facing hunger. That includes 14 million children (about 20%) who are food insecure. In some rural U.S. counties childhood hunger is 50%, according to the food bank Feeding America. With the largest federal cuts in history to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and $1 billion in federal cuts to school lunch programs and aid to food banks, food insecurity numbers are expected to soar. An estimated 40% of Americans who face hunger do not qualify for SNAP benefits because their family income is just over the threshold. Food insecurity afflicts 7.4 million seniors over 60 years of age. Combined with the $1 trillion in federal cuts to Medicaid over the next 10 years and home prices spiking by 72% in just 5 years, the basics of survival—food, healthcare, and shelter—will be increasingly out of reach for a growing portion of Americans. That will only lead to an increased death rate.
Canceling this report on food insecurity fits a pattern of eliminating any inconvenient government data, such as the August 1 firing of Erika McEntarfer, a commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, when poor figures were released for job growth in May and June. Instead of solving problems, the government’s incentive is to ignore the problem. Critical voices are pulled off the air, newspapers face $15 billion lawsuits, efforts are being made to prosecute opposing views on Truth Social, and peaceful protesters are routinely arrested.
