The USDA quietly ended its 30-year food security report in September 2025, leaving no replacement plan. The final data showed 47.4 million Americans were food insecure in 2023, and that number now has no scheduled successor. As hunger climbs and policy debates intensify, the federal government has lost its primary tool for counting who goes without meals.
What Vanished With the Report
The USDA’s Economic Research Service published its Household Food Security report every year since 1995. The final edition dropped on December 30, 2025. Then nothing.
This wasn’t a minor bureaucratic adjustment. The report surveyed tens of thousands of households and measured food insecurity on a layered spectrum, distinguishing families who occasionally worried about groceries from those experiencing very low food security: meals skipped, portions cut, pantries bare. That nuance matters enormously for policy.
One in seven households, 47.4 million people including 13.8 million children, were food insecure according to the most recent data. That number now has no scheduled successor.What made it irreplaceable: 30 years of consistent, comparable data across all 50 states, a standardized definition used by researchers worldwide, and state and demographic breakdowns no other federal survey replicated. Food banks used it to decide where to send trucks. Legislators cited it to justify SNAP and school meal funding.
What Alternative Sources Remain
A handful of partial substitutes exist, though none match the scope of what was lost. The Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey includes some food security questions but with less frequency. The Census Household Pulse Survey tracks food insufficiency weekly but uses a narrower framework. Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap estimates county-level hunger, but its accuracy depends on federal survey data as a calibration baseline.
These tools were designed to complement the USDA report, not replace it. They are fragments of a mosaic that no longer has a center. Over 50 anti-hunger organizations have formally requested restoration of federal food security reporting, but political will to act remains uncertain.
