Trump Administration Cancels Release of Annual Hunger Survey

① Last Saturday local time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officially announced that it would halt the data collection and release of the 2025 "Household Food Security Report," citing "excessive politicization"; ② Many economists and scholars accused the Trump administration of suspending the report amid high inflation and a declining labor market in the U.S., potentially aiming to掩盖 the country's worsening hunger issue.

Last Saturday local time, the USDA officially announced that it would halt the data collection and release of the 2025 "Household Food Security Report," citing "excessive politicization."

It is reported that the "Household Food Security Report" aims to collect data on how many Americans struggle to access sufficient food and is commonly referred to within the industry as the annual hunger survey. In previous years, the USDA began collecting and analyzing this data each December to measure food shortages across states and among different demographic groups.

Since its inception in the mid-1990s, this data has been collected annually and widely used by federal, state, and local policymakers to determine funding allocations for food assistance programs and evaluate their effectiveness.

According to attendees, a director from the Economic Research Service under the USDA announced the decision to discontinue the survey in 2025 during a meeting with department staff last week. Attendees noted that staff were informed the USDA would not fund the survey this year.

Last Saturday, the USDA confirmed the cancellation of the survey. "This non-mandatory report has become excessively politicized and, upon further review, was deemed unnecessary for the department's work," said USDA spokesperson Alec Varsamis.

He added that the 2024 "Household Food Security Report" will be released on October 22, but the 2025 report has been canceled.