Published February 3, 2026
America has a hunger crisis. And it’s about to get worse.
The latest and last Household Food Security report released in December by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (ERS) reveals that 47.9 million people lived in food-insecure households in 2024. These findings underscore a crisis that is set to deepen as the largest cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in history take effect, and the decision by the Trump administration to no longer issue the report will simply hide the impact of these cuts on food security.
In 2024, 1 in 7 households — 13.7 percent, or 18.3 million households — experienced food insecurity, defined as a lack of access to an affordable, nutritious diet. Children were significantly impacted, with 14.1 million children living in food-insecure households . Very low food security — the most severe form, in which families skip meals or reduce food intake because of limited resources — affected 5.4 percent of U.S. households. Food insecurity remained especially high among single-parent households headed by women at 36.8 percent, as well as among Black households at 24.4 percent and Latinx households at 20.2 percent. Regionally, the South experienced the highest rate of food insecurity at 15.0 percent. Rates were also higher in urban (16.0 percent) and rural (15.9 percent) areas than in suburban communities (11.9 percent).
Food insecurity is rooted in a lack of money and other resources to acquire food. Data on household food spending and participation in federal nutrition programs helps show how families across the country are coping with rising food costs and where gaps remain.
Household Food Spending
Across all households — not only those experiencing food insecurity — families typically spend about $75 per person per week on food. This amount is roughly 18 percent more than the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan for a given household. The Thrifty Food Plan was created by USDA in 1975, to provide estimates for the weekly cost of a diet designed to meet nutritional needs at minimal expense. TFP sets the maximum benefit amount for SNAP.
Federal Food and Nutrition Assistance Programs
Federal nutrition programs play a critical role in helping families meet their food needs. In an average month, SNAP provided benefits to 41.7 million people — about 12.3 percent of the U.S. population. The average SNAP benefit was approximately $187.59 per person per month. Unfortunately, H.R. 1 mandates that the Thrifty Food Plan remains cost-neutral, preventing SNAP benefits from reflecting actual food costs and updated dietary guidelines. As a result, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects SNAP benefits will decline by $37 billion over the next decade,.4, 5 leading to a real decrease in the purchasing power of SNAP benefits.
In 2024, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) served about 6.7 million participants per month. The average monthly value of the WIC benefits per participant was just over $81.
Child nutrition programs also reached millions of children nationwide. In 2024, the National School Lunch Program operated in more than 97,000 public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions. Across the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, and the Summer Food Service Program, 8.8 billion meals were served.
Why This Report Matters
For more than three decades, this report has been the gold standard for understanding the challenges millions of families face in putting food on the table. It is the most comprehensive tool available for annual, nationally representative, and state-level estimates of food insecurity, including data on critical subpopulations. No other national survey is readily capable of replacing it.
The Trump administration’s announcement that it will no longer issue this annual benchmark will severely limit the nation’s ability to track food insecurity in the United States and to understand the impact of policy choices, including measuring the impact of SNAP cuts included in the budget reconciliation law (H.R.1) on food security.
This report informs key policy decisions around the federal nutrition programs, which are essential to ensuring that tens of millions of people — including children, working families, veterans, and older adults — have access to the nutrition they need.
Protecting Food Security Data and Programs
In November, the Food Assurance and Security Act (H.R. 6252) was introduced to protect this critical report. Eliminating this annual data will not end food insecurity; it will only hide the struggle that millions of families face
Congress must pass this bill without delay, along with the Restoring Food Security for American Families and Farmers Act of 2025, which would repeal the devastating SNAP cuts enacted through the budget reconciliation law, H.R. 1.