The USDA recently announced the cancellation of its annual Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM, also known as the USDA Food Security Survey), calling it “redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous,” and falsely suggesting other datasets can fill the gap. The final HFSSM data set analyzing the state of food security in 2024 was released in December. This leaves policymakers, researchers, and advocates without access to the only comprehensive tool for assessing national food insecurity trends.
For nearly 30 years, the USDA’s annual HFSSM, conducted through the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) of 40,000 households, has been the backbone of food security data in the US. It’s how we know that, in 2024, one in seven U.S. households struggled to put food on the table, and that 5 percent faced such severe hardship they skipped meals or went hungry.
Those statistics guide local health departments, state agencies, and food banks in targeting high-need regions; spur community-based food assistance programs; and make it possible to measure whether federal food assistance programs, like SNAP, actually work. Without reliable national data, smaller nonprofits, community organizations, rural counties, and others least able to conduct their own surveys will lose their evidence base.
Why other data can’t replace it
The Trump Administration has pointed to the improvement of economic indicators such as declining poverty rates as a rationale for ending the HFSSM. However, the HFSSM measures something fundamentally different from poverty, and the two should not be confused. Poverty is an income-based measure rooted in the federal poverty threshold. Poverty data says little about what income actually means for daily life. In contrast, food security is an experience-based measure that captures how people actually live with the resources they have. The USDA survey reveals these nuances by asking families directly about their ability to afford balanced meals, stretch groceries throughout the month, and avoid skipping meals when money is tight. This distinction is why food security data have become indispensable for public health research, local planning, and policy design.
The cancellation of the USDA’s survey also fits into a troubling pattern of the current administration defunding and dismantling public data infrastructure. The USDA’s justification, outlined in its press release, is that the food security survey merely repeats insights already captured by a “bevy of more timely and accurate data sets.” Indeed, there are numerous other federally-funded surveys that include some measure of food security, but no other surveys provide as complete of a picture as the USDA’s HFSSM.
With regard to food insecurity, there are three main drawbacks to other national surveys. First, other surveys do not collect large enough samples to evaluate food security at the state level. Approximately 40,000 people complete the HFSSM annually, providing a representative picture of food insecurity at both the state and federal levels. The only other survey that collects the same breadth and depth of food insecurity data, the obtains information from fewer than 6,000 people per year, on average. These surveys are designed primarily to provide reliable national estimates, not precise data for smaller geographic areas. Collecting enough responses in every state requires much larger, more expensive samples. Food security rates vary widely across states as a result of differences in cost of living, social safety net programs, and local economies. Without state-level data, these disparities can be masked by national averages.
Next, some surveys measure food security too infrequently to capture timely changes. For example, NHANES, a national survey that collects important information about health and nutrition, is conducted only every two years, as opposed to the HFSSM which is collected and reported on every year. During the pandemic, the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey briefly filled an information gap, but its rapid, online-only format and shifting questionnaire make it unreliable for long-term trend analysis. Without consistent, annual data, we lose the ability to detect emerging problems and respond to changes in economic conditions and families’ needs in real time.
Finally, very few surveys collect enough information to adequately track food security in households with children. The USDA HFSSM includes 18 questions, of which eight are specifically targeted for households with children. These questions have been rigorously tested and are considered the “gold standard” for measuring food security. Of the ten active surveys listed on the USDA website, only one survey—NHANES—includes all 18 questions. Other surveys include ten, six, or two of the questions, which provide some understanding, but not the whole picture. Existing surveys are unlikely to add questions and begin collecting more complete food security data because adding questions to already lengthy surveys reduces the likelihood that respondents will complete the survey.
Each federally funded survey offers valuable insights, but they can't replicate the USDA’s HFSSM – which provides continuous, comprehensive, nationally representative, and state-specific data which public health officials, state agencies, and community organizations depend on to direct resources and evaluate programs.
Beyond food security: Measuring nutrition security
As advocates and policymakers consider whether and how to reinstate the HFSSM, they should also consider how the HFSSM might be able to capture data on not just food security, but also nutrition security. The USDA’s own Nutrition Security initiative, launched in 2022, acknowledges that having access to enough food is not the same as having access to enough nutritious food. Nutrition security is about consistent access to foods that promote health and prevent disease. It reflects the reality that many households can afford to eat something, but not necessarily something healthy. Data on healthy food access would allow us to better understand how inequities in our food system may translate into inequities in health, such as why families in low-income communities are more likely to face both hunger and chronic disease.
USDA could modernize the HFSSM to include metrics on nutrition security, which emphasizes nutritional quality and affordability, alongside food security, which emphasizes food sufficiency. Expanding the HFSSM would give policymakers a fuller picture of both hunger and the quality of diets people can realistically afford, exactly the kind of insight the Trump Administration says it wants.
Discontinuing the USDA’s food security survey won’t reduce hunger; it will merely erase the evidence of it. That’s why Congress must act to restore and protect the HFSSM and to reinstate the expert researchers at the Economic Research Service whose work ensures this data remains rigorous, independent, and transparent. No other survey comprehensively measures whether households have enough to eat. As states grapple with SNAP benefit interruptions, increased costs, and changes in eligibility, losing this data source will leave policymakers in the dark at the very moment when accurate, timely measures of hardship are most critical.
