After nearly three decades as the go-to resource for understanding hunger in America, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced it will discontinue its Household Food Security Report following the release of the 2024 edition on October 22, 2025. The decision, made public on September 20, 2025, has sent shockwaves through the worlds of journalism, public policy, and social advocacy, with many experts warning of dire consequences for tracking and combating food insecurity in the United States—especially as sweeping federal assistance cuts loom.
The USDA’s official rationale for axing the report was blunt. In a statement, the agency called the report “redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous,” and dismissed its findings as “subjective, liberal fodder.” But for many, this so-called “gold standard” dataset has been a cornerstone for understanding hunger trends among adults and children alike. Its loss, critics say, comes at the worst possible time: just as the Trump administration and Congress are enacting deep cuts to federal food assistance programs.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Alec Varsamis, the USDA’s acting director of communications, stated that the agency would pivot to “more timely and accurate data sets” in place of the annual report, though he did not specify which sources would fill the gap. The lack of clarity has only heightened concerns among advocates and researchers who rely on the report’s robust, longitudinal data to monitor the effects of federal policies on food insecurity.
These anxieties are well-founded. The budget megabill signed by President Donald J. Trump on July 4, 2025, mandates steep funding cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—which serves nearly 42 million Americans—and the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), supporting about 6 million families. The cuts are set to begin in 2027, or earlier if states choose to implement them sooner. And the changes don’t stop there. Starting January 1, 2027, new work requirements for adults aged 19 to 64 on Medicaid will take effect in 41 states and the District of Columbia (all of which expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act), as well as in Georgia and Wisconsin, which have partial expansions. Recipients must complete 80 hours of work or community service each month—or meet specific exemption criteria—to retain their coverage.
For rural America, the impact is expected to be particularly harsh. As Farmers' Advance reported on October 13, 2025, funding cuts to food assistance, Medicaid, and scientific research are scheduled to begin as soon as November 1, 2025. The Food Research & Action Center notes that while 11.1% of the U.S. population lives in poverty, the rate jumps to 15.3% in rural areas. Food insecurity also disproportionately affects these communities: 15.4% of rural households struggle with hunger, compared to 12.2% nationally, and one in seven rural households relies on SNAP.
“A larger percentage of the 5.3 million families ticketed to lose an estimated $1,752 per year in SNAP benefits as part of the ‘big beautiful bill’ live in rural America,” Farmers' Advance observed. The Urban Institute warns that less food—no matter where one lives—means worse health, and projects that the loss of benefits could fuel an additional $50 billion in health care costs nationwide.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that the new law will slash federal spending on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program by $1.02 trillion over the next decade, stripping benefits from at least 10.5 million people. One in four rural Americans depends on Medicaid for health insurance, and 36% of that group are children. Rural hospitals—already in a precarious position, with 44% operating at a loss according to KFF Health News—face even steeper challenges. While Congressional Republicans tout a new $50 billion fund to cushion the blow, health care professionals point out that this covers only a third of the proposed rural cuts and does nothing to offset the expected additional costs stemming from SNAP and vaccine program reductions.
Meanwhile, food banks across the country are under mounting pressure. A June 2025 report from the Capital Area Food Bank found that 820,000 adults in the Washington, D.C. area had regularly skipped meals or struggled to find food in the past year, with the number facing the most severe hunger rising for a third consecutive year. These findings were echoed by The Washington Post, which noted that food banks in seven states—California, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, West Virginia, and Wisconsin—have lost millions in federal dollars and funding for food deliveries since the July 4 budget bill. The cuts have hit major USDA programs like The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and school food assistance, forcing food banks to offer fewer staples such as produce and meat.
“It is alarming that USDA is ending this trusted report that many refer to as the gold-standard data just as huge cuts are coming to the biggest nutrition assistance program in the country,” Joseph Llobrera, Ph.D., director of food assistance at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, told the Association of Health Care Journalists. “We’re talking on the order of a 20% cut to the program over the next decade or so.”
Llobrera also pushed back against the USDA’s claim that food insecurity was “virtually unchanged” from 2019 to 2023, despite SNAP spending rising over 87% in that period. “If USDA had looked at their own data over time, they would know that it’s absolutely not true that the prevalence of food insecurity was ‘virtually unchanged’ from 2019 to 2023,” he wrote. He pointed out that during the Great Recession, food hardship spiked, and during the pandemic, government stimulus and expanded tax credits helped prevent a similar rise in food insecurity. But once those programs ended, food insecurity surged again in 2022 and 2023. “In other words, the data in the food security reports help to tell that story,” Llobrera concluded.
Compounding the problem, the USDA notified states on October 3, 2025, that they must comply with major changes to SNAP eligibility, work requirements, and cost coverage by November 1, 2025—a timeline many experts say is simply unworkable. “Telling states Oct. 3 you have to be in compliance [by] Nov. 1 is impossible,” Colleen Heflin of Syracuse University told Marketplace. She warned that mistakes are inevitable, from people losing benefits to administrative confusion, and that costs will rise as agencies scramble to keep up.
SNAP has long served as an “automatic stabilizer” during economic downturns, supporting families’ grocery purchases and keeping related jobs afloat. But the latest changes threaten to undermine that safety net, just as millions of Americans may need it most.
As the nation braces for these sweeping changes, one thing is clear: the loss of reliable, comprehensive data on food insecurity could leave policymakers—and the public—flying blind at a time when hunger is poised to become an even more urgent crisis.
