Trump administration ends hunger report after SNAP cuts
USDA says the Household Food Security Report has become politicized and inaccurate as food-aid reductions take effect.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is ending the federal government's annual Household Food Security Report, saying the data collection has become 'overly politicized' and 'rife with inaccuracies.'
Two and a half months after President Donald Trump signed legislation sharply reducing food aid to the poor, the administration said the report would end. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the tax and spending cuts bill passed in July would cause about 3 million people to lose eligibility for SNAP benefits.
The decision to scrap the USDA's Household Food Security Report was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. In a press release, USDA said the 2024 report, which would have been released Oct. 22, would be the last.
'The questions used to collect the data are entirely subjective and do not present an accurate picture of actual food security,' the USDA said. 'The data is rife with inaccuracies slanted to create a narrative that is not representative of what is actually happening in the countryside as we are currently experiencing lower poverty rates, increasing wages, and job growth under the Trump Administration.'
Critics were quick to accuse the administration of deliberately making it harder to measure hunger and assess the impact of its cuts to food stamps. Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, said on social media that 'Trump is cancelling an annual government survey that measures hunger in America, rather than allow it to show hunger increasing under his tenure.'
The policy move comes as the administration argues that the country is seeing improvements in labor markets and poverty measures. Supporters cite a Census Bureau report indicating the poverty rate had dipped to 10.6% last year, while opponents say withdrawing the data makes it harder to gauge the policy outcomes of SNAP changes.
As the government pivots away from publishing the annual gauge, officials did not spell out how hunger and food-security metrics will be tracked going forward. The move, critics say, could obscure the short- and long-term effects of the SNAP reductions on low-income households across rural and urban America.