Last week, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its 30th annual report tracking food security across the country.
It could be the last one.
In September, the Trump administration terminated all future Household Food Security surveys, calling the study “redundant,” “costly,” and “subjective, liberal fodder.”
The move came less than two months after the president signed H.R. 1, or the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, into law, which cuts billions from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over the next decade.
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The 2025 report, which uses data collected in 2024, shows that nearly 14%, or one in seven, households in the country experienced food insecurity, or barriers to affordable, nutritious meals.
Another 5.4% experienced very low food security, meaning they are forced to eat less or skip meals entirely.
Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research and Action Center, said this annual data release is crucial to understanding hunger in America — and whether federal policies are adequately addressing it.
"Eliminating this report does not eliminate the problem. It just hides it. It hides the struggle that millions of families face to put food on the table,” she said.
Food insecurity in Florida
In Florida, along with 27 other states, food insecurity is on the rise, the report shows.
On average, the state saw 3.4% more households experiencing food insecurity between 2022 and 2024, compared to 2019 through 2021.
“Over one in 10 households in Florida are struggling to put food on the table,” FitzSimons said. “So it can be your neighbor, it can be the person living across the street from you. It can be kids whose families are in your kid's school.”
Nationally, the rates of food insecurity are the highest in the South and among Black and Latino households, compared to their white counterparts.
Single-parent households and those earning below 185% of the federal poverty line — $60,000 annually for a family of four in Hillsborough County — struggled the most to put food on the table, according to the 2025 report.
A data desert on food access
Food policy experts say there's not a comparable report to the comprehensive data released by the USDA's Household Food Security survey.
"There really is no other entity that can put this data together the way the federal government can," FitzSimons said.
In response to the announcement that the data would no longer be released, some research groups, like the Urban Institute, have started triaging what it would require to replicate it.
The heaviest lift would be collecting accurate, state-level data, according to Urban Institute senior fellow Elaine Waxman.
“It would be extremely challenging and very expensive for states to stand up individual probability sample surveys that could provide regular credible estimates,” she said in a written comment.
Since 2017, the Urban Institute has conducted the Well-Being and Basic Needs Survey, a national cost-of-living study.
But Waxman said it cannot replace the federally-collected food security data that “so many state and local governments, service providers, and funders rely on” to make policy decisions.
Congress is considering a bill that would reverse the Trump administration’s decision to discontinue the data release.
The Food Assurance and Security Act, H.R. 6252, was introduced in November but has had minimal action.
Gabriella Paul covers the stories of people living paycheck to paycheck in the greater Tampa Bay region for WUSF. Here’s how you can share your story with her.
