WASHINGTON ― The Trump administration has called off the government’s annual estimate of household food security.
“These redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous studies do nothing more than fear monger,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a statement over the weekend.
It’s President Donald Trump’s starkest attack on economic data since he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics last month over unfavorable jobs numbers. And it comes as the Trump administration prepares to enact food benefit cuts Republicans pushed through Congress to help pay for tax cuts.
The most recent “Household Food Security” report, released in September 2024, showed rising food insecurity, with 13.5% of households reporting food insecurity in 2023, up from 12.8% the previous year and 10.2% in 2021.
“Food insecurity” is not the same as hunger ― it means a household had trouble providing food for all of its members at some point during the year due to lack of resources. Only 5.1% of households reported “very low food security” in last year’s report, meaning food intake was reduced and eating patterns were disrupted at times. The same percentage of households experienced very low food security in 2022.
