The USDA’s decision to end its Food Security Supplement survey leaves hunger organizations searching for new ways to track and address food insecurity.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is canceling a survey that hunger groups use to understand — and respond to — food insecurity across the country.
The USDA has collected data using the Food Security Supplement for about 30 years. Once a year, the questionnaire was included in the U.S. Census’ monthly Current Population Survey.
The survey asked questions such as how often people couldn’t afford food that year or if they lost weight due to a lack of food. It specifically measured food insecurity, which the USDA calls a “household-level … condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.”
“With that data, we’re able to know estimates for food insecurity rates across the country and then also at the state level,” said University of Missouri Senior Project Coordinator Bill McKelvey.
The most recent report showed that in 2023, 13.5% of households were food insecure, the highest rate since 2014. Between 2021 and 2023, the six states with the highest food insecurity — Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Kentucky — were all in the Mississippi River Basin.
The recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act codified new, more-stringent work restrictions for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP – a move the Congressional Budget Office estimated would result in 2.4 million people losing access to nutritional benefits meant to alleviate food insecurity.
McKelvey authors the Missouri Hunger Atlas, an annual, statewide report on hunger that pulls together data from multiple sources, including the USDA survey.
“With that data, you can sort of understand how the issue affects different subpopulations,” he said. “For example, we know how food security status can differ based on race and ethnicity, based on household composition and other factors like that.”
The Hunger Atlas uses about a dozen data sources in total, according to McKelvey. But much of that data is from sources that don’t have direct data about hunger, but instead use models to estimate food insecurity.
For example, the non-profit network of food banks Feeding America maintains a county-level food insecurity map called Map the Meal Gap. The map models food insecurity by using factors including “unemployment, poverty, disability, homeownership, and median income.”
The USDA’s survey is more direct — it asks a representative sample of the population about their access to food through 10-18 questions. It also has demographic data so researchers can see how factors such as race and ethnicity affect food insecurity.
“We appreciate having both measures, because, to some degree, they help to kind of corroborate one another,” McKelvey said “And they both, in our opinion, have their place within this whole sphere of food insecurity research and policy and program development.”
The 2024 report is still set to be released later this month, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Not perfect, but valuable
In its press release terminating the program, the USDA called the survey “redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous” and said it does “nothing more than fear monger.”
Angela Rachidi, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute — a center-right think tank – said the administration was right to cancel the survey. Rachidi studies the effects of safety-net programs and said the survey’s measure of what the government calls “food security” does not necessarily translate to understanding hunger.
“If we really want to measure hunger, or people going without food due to a lack of resources, this survey is not helping us,” she said.
She points to survey questions that ask whether people were “worried” their food budgets would run out or if they couldn’t afford to eat “balanced meals.” While these may be indicators of hunger, Rachidi said, these sorts of statements are too subjective to be useful.
“Your idea of nutritious and my idea of nutritious are completely different,” she said. “It’s just subjective, and I don’t think that we should be basing public policy and huge federal expenditures on things that are so subjective.”
Rachidi also said the data is redundant, pointing to 11 federal data sources that also track food insecurity using the same model. But some of them survey the population less frequently than the USDA survey or focus on specific segments of the population, meaning they provide a less complete picture.
Still, she said, “there will definitely be a break in the food insecurity measure produced by the USDA (Food and Nutrition Service). That is true, and we won’t be collecting it through the same methodology.”
In a statement following the USDA’s announcement, Feeding America said the data “has never been a perfect resource, but it has been a valuable one that helped us all to track trends over time, highlight the experiences of households and children, and understand how programs and support can influence families’ stability and self-sufficiency.”
Feeding America partner food banks use the Map the Meal Gap study — which incorporates the USDA survey — to know how many food-insecure people live in each county to make sure they are distributing their resources where they’re needed.
“Then we pair that with the information that we have from our partners on the ground, to say: ‘Is that reflecting the same reality, and are we being fair at the partner level and the county level?’” said Grace Kroll, director of programs at the Food Bank for Central & Northeast Missouri.
That food bank is part of a coalition of Missouri food banks called Feeding Missouri, a partner of Feeding America. Executive director Leigh Anne Haun said the national organization has been in contact with partners about the path forward.
“We’re assured underlying data is going to continue to be collected, and they’re already working to adapt their research … and incorporating additional and more timely data resources,” she said. “We’re all adjusting to it in the same timeline as everyone else.”
In its statement, the national organization said it is “exploring innovative ways to measure food access” and specifically working with Arkansas food banks on a “groundbreaking statewide study of food needs.”
Arkansas currently ranks worst in the country for food insecurity. Between 2021 and 2023, an average of 18.9% of Arkansas households were food insecure, nearly 7 percentage points higher than the U.S. average during that period.
Claire Tiffin works at the Arkansas Food Bank, another Feeding America Partner.
“The most important thing about having a lot of data about food insecurity is so that we know: A, where are the most food insecure areas? And then B, as we target those areas with a response, how is that response working?” Tiffin said.
Tiffin said Feeding America uses the data to set its targets for three-year periods, so there won’t be any immediate disruptions.
“That being said, we are definitely going to work to develop alternative data sources so that we can continuously maintain accuracy,” she added.
Haun, in Missouri, said that while data can be useful for research and decision-makers, a lot of the day-to-day decisions by foodbanks are handled at the grassroots level.
“This household food security report — it has been a valuable tool, but even if that ends, our food banks are still going to see the real-time human impact every day,” she said. “We’re going to see the parents, seniors and kids represented in those reports.”
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.
#FoodInsecurity #USDA #FoodSecurity #HungerRelief #FoodData #Census #FoodAid #FoodPoverty #USAgov #Nutrition
