{"id":11149,"date":"2026-01-13T17:25:36","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T17:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bread.org\/?post_type=article&#038;p=11149"},"modified":"2026-01-15T16:12:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T16:12:06","slug":"final-usda-food-report-reveals-food-insecurity-in-america-remains-high","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.bread.org\/article\/final-usda-food-report-reveals-food-insecurity-in-america-remains-high\/","title":{"rendered":"Final USDA Food Report Reveals\u00a0Food Insecurity in America\u00a0Remains High\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Washington, D.C., January&nbsp;13, 2026 \u2014&nbsp;<\/strong>Bread for the World issued the following statement&nbsp;regarding&nbsp;the release of the USDA&nbsp;<em>Household Food Security&nbsp;in the United States in 2024&nbsp;<\/em>Report and the decision to&nbsp;terminate&nbsp;production of this annual report. The statement can be attributed to Rev. Eugene Cho, president and CEO of Bread for the World.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFor 30 years, USDA has released in-depth annual reports on the state of food security for families across the United States. This report has provided a firm foundation of data for lawmakers and advocates focused on&nbsp;eliminating&nbsp;hunger and food insecurity across the nation.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe latest report&nbsp;on 2024 data,&nbsp;released on December&nbsp;30,&nbsp;reveals that&nbsp;hunger in America is not declining. In fact, 13.7% of all American households (18.3 million) faced food insecurity at least once, with&nbsp;18.4%&nbsp;of households with children reporting&nbsp;difficulty putting food on the&nbsp;table. Additionally, 5.4% of households reported experiencing \u201cvery low\u201d food security, reflecting severe difficulty accessing adequate food for the household.&nbsp;These figures&nbsp;indicate&nbsp;that food insecurity has risen by three percentage points over the last three years and&nbsp;remains&nbsp;at a 10-year high, well above pre-pandemic levels.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBy cutting SNAP benefits and adding&nbsp;stricter&nbsp;work requirements at a time when food insecurity is so elevated&nbsp;and&nbsp;food prices continue to rise, a significant burden for food provision will be placed on state agencies, churches, and food banks that are under-resourced and&nbsp;not designed to&nbsp;meet&nbsp;the nutritional needs of their communities&nbsp;at this scale.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWith the latest data highlighting the reality of hunger in the United States, Bread for the World continues to be concerned about the decision in September to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fns.usda.gov\/newsroom\/usda-0219.25\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">terminate the production<\/a>&nbsp;and release of all future Food Security Reports.&nbsp;While it is important to review the cost of producing reports against the&nbsp;value&nbsp;they lend to decision making,&nbsp;by ending the data collection and reporting around&nbsp;household&nbsp;food security,&nbsp;lawmakers, advocates,&nbsp;researchers&nbsp;and the&nbsp;public&nbsp;will be unable to see the impacts of&nbsp;legislation&nbsp;and programs&nbsp;designed&nbsp;to target food insecurity.&nbsp;While we&nbsp;welcome&nbsp;cutting areas of true waste,&nbsp;we are hopeful the significant service this&nbsp;report&nbsp;provides will cause the agency to&nbsp;reconsider&nbsp;its&nbsp;termination.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAccurate, consistent data allows our nation to see hunger clearly, respond compassionately&nbsp;and effectively, and hold ourselves accountable&nbsp;to&nbsp;the well-being of our neighbors. We urge this Administration and Congress to work together to reinstate the USDA Household Food Security Report to provide essential,&nbsp;accurate&nbsp;data on&nbsp;one of&nbsp;the most basic&nbsp;needs&nbsp;of its constituency: hunger.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, D.C., January&nbsp;13, 2026 \u2014&nbsp;Bread for the World issued the following statement&nbsp;regarding&nbsp;the release of the USDA&nbsp;Household Food Security&nbsp;in the United States in 2024&nbsp;Report and the decision to&nbsp;terminate&nbsp;production of this annual report. The statement can be attributed to Rev. Eugene Cho, president and CEO of Bread for the World.&nbsp; \u201cFor 30 years, USDA has released in-depth<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":8372,"template":"","tags":[],"focus":[139],"topic":[33,68],"resource_type":[],"class_list":["post-11149","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","focus-press-releases","topic-hunger","topic-u-s"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bread.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/11149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bread.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bread.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bread.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/11149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bread.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bread.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bread.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11149"},{"taxonomy":"focus","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bread.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/focus?post=11149"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bread.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=11149"},{"taxonomy":"resource_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bread.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_type?post=11149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}