U.S. Food Insecurity Holds Steady in 2024, USDA Finds
New USDA data show 13.7% of households experienced food insecurity last year, with severe hardship concentrated among low-income families despite broad participation in federal nutrition programs
A new report (link) from USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) finds that food insecurity in the United States remained largely unchanged in 2024, underscoring persistent affordability pressures for millions of households even as conditions stabilized compared with recent years.
According to the analysis, 86.3% of U.S. households were food secure throughout 2024, while 13.7% — about 18.3 million households — were food insecure at some point during the year, a rate statistically similar to 2023 and 2022.
Within that total, 5.4% of households experienced very low food security, the most severe category, marked by reduced food intake and disrupted eating patterns because of limited resources. This equates to roughly 7.2 million households nationwide, a share that has remained essentially flat for three consecutive years.
Households with children continued to face elevated risk. In 2024, 18.4% of households with children were food insecure, and in 9.1% of those households both adults and children experienced food insecurity. Particularly severe conditions — where children were reported to be hungry, skipping meals, or not eating for an entire day — were present in 0.9% of households with children, or about 318,000 households, a figure statistically unchanged from recent years.
The report also highlights spending disparities. Food-secure households spent about 11.1% more on food than food-insecure households of similar size and composition, reflecting ongoing constraints on food purchasing power among vulnerable families.
Federal nutrition assistance continues to play a central role. In the month prior to the survey, 58.9% of food-insecure households participated in at least one major federal program, including SNAP, WIC, or the National School Lunch Program. ERS emphasizes that while these programs mitigate hardship, the persistence of food insecurity reflects broader economic conditions, household circumstances, and policy environments rather than short-term fluctuations alone.
Key findings from the ERS report:
• 1 in 7ouseholds (13.7%) in America experienced food insecurity, or lack of access to an affordable, nutritious diet, in 2024.
• 14.1 million children lived in households that experienced food insecurity in 2024, a slight increase from the 13.8 million children reported in 2023.
• More single-parent households headed by women experienced food insecurity at 36.8%, nearly 2% higher than 2023 (34.7%).
• Rates of food insecurity remained high for Black (24.4%) and Latinx (20.2%) households. The rate for Black households was more than double the 10.1% rate for White, non-Latinx households.
• Households in the Southern region continued to experience the highest rates of food insecurity at 15.0%.
• Food insecurity was significantly higher in urban areas (16.0%) and rural areas (15.9%) compared to suburban areas (11.9%).
Overall, the 2024 findings point to a plateau in food insecurity after earlier pandemic-era improvements faded, suggesting that without significant changes in incomes, prices, or policy support, food hardship is likely to remain a structural challenge for a sizable share of U.S. households.
USDA announced on Sept. 20, 2025, that it is terminating future Household Food Security reports, describing the survey as “redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous.” The agency said it will no longer continue the annual report after publishing the final edition based on 2024 data.
The report has been produced for nearly 30 years by the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS), drawing on food security modules in the Current Population Survey to track the prevalence and severity of food insecurity nationally.
In its announcement, USDA stated it plans to rely on other, more “timely and accurate data sets” instead of the annual food security survey, indicating a shift away from this standalone report toward alternative data sources. However, USDA did not detail a specific replacement methodology at the time of the announcement. USDA previously informed that they were working with an outside data firm.
Of note: USDA’s framing in the press release emphasized that similar data are already collected in other national surveys, though experts note that none currently match the comprehensive, standardized approach of the annual USDA report.
Anti-hunger advocates, academics, and food bank leaders have criticized the USDA decision, warning that eliminating this report will make it harder to track trends, evaluate policy impacts, and tailor responses to rising food insecurity. The Food Research and Action Center released a statement (link) that said: “For more than three decades, this report has been the gold standard for understanding the struggle that millions of families face to put food on the table. Yet, the Trump administration has announced that after this year it will no longer issue this annual benchmark, which will impact the ability to track food insecurity in the U.S. and the impact of the SNAP cuts included in the budget reconciliation law. The ERS report is the most comprehensive tool we have for annual, nationally representative, and state-level estimates that capture food insecurity across critical subpopulations, and no other national survey is readily capable of taking its place.”
The final Household Food Security Report based on 2024 data was expected to be published in October 2025 as the last installment of the discontinued series, but was delayed due to the 43-day government shutdown.
