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Food insecurity statistics for 2025 and 2026, after the USDA report ended

The last official U.S. figure is from 2024: 13.7% of households (18.3 million) were food insecure at some point that year. That works out to 47.9 million people, including 14.1 million children, according to the USDA Economic Research Service. USDA announced on September 20, 2025 that it would stop publishing the Household Food Security report, so there is no USDA figure for 2025 or later. The most recent national survey reading is from the Urban Institute: 24.2% of adults reported household food insecurity in the 12 months before December 2025 (Urban Institute, March 2026). That figure uses a different survey and population than USDA’s, so the two cannot be compared directly. Every figure below links to the page it came from and names its year, geography and measure.

Key food insecurity figures

Figure Value Measure Year Geography Source
Households food insecure 13.7% (18.3 million) Food insecure, 12 months 2024 U.S. USDA ERS
Households with very low food security 5.4% (7.2 million) Very low food security, 12 months 2024 U.S. USDA ERS
People in food-insecure households 47.9 million (14.4% of the population) Persons in food-insecure households 2024 U.S. ERR-358
Children in food-insecure households 14.1 million Persons in food-insecure households 2024 U.S. ERR-358
Households with children, food insecure 18.4% (6.7 million) Food insecure, 12 months 2024 U.S. USDA ERS
State range 9.0% (North Dakota) to 19.4% (Arkansas) Food insecure, 3-year average 2022 to 2024 States ERR-358, table 4
Adults reporting household food insecurity 24.2% (ages 18+), 27.7% (ages 18 to 64) Food insecure, 12 months, adult survey December 2025 U.S. Urban Institute WBNS
Adults in households sometimes or often without enough to eat 18.2 million (6.9% of adults, derived) Food insufficiency, last 7 days July to August 2026 U.S. Census HTOPS
SNAP participants 36,352,716 Program enrollment June 2026 (preliminary) U.S. USDA FNA
Meals through Feeding America food banks 5.9 billion Meals distributed FY2025 (July 2024 to June 2025) U.S. Feeding America annual report

What the measures mean

  • Food insecure (USDA): at some time during the year, the household had trouble providing enough food for everyone because it lacked money or other resources. It covers low and very low food security together.
  • Very low food security (USDA): one or more household members ate less and had disrupted eating patterns at times because of lack of money.
  • Food insufficiency (Census): the household sometimes or often did not have enough to eat in the last 7 days. It is a single question about a shorter period, not the USDA scale.
  • Low-income, low-access tract (USDA): a census tract with low income and a long distance to a large grocery store or SNAP retailer. It is commonly called a food desert. It measures distance to stores, not hunger.

Final USDA figures: household food security in 2024

ERS published Household Food Security in the United States in 2024 (ERR-358) on December 30, 2025. The data come from the December 2024 Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement, which covered 32,719 households (ERR-358). The 2024 rate of 13.7% was not statistically different from 13.5% in 2023 or 12.8% in 2022 (ERR-358). It was significantly higher than in any year from 2016 through 2021 (ERS key statistics).

In 9.1% of households with children (3.3 million households), the children themselves were food insecure, along with adults. About 7.3 million children lived in those households. In 0.9% of households with children (318,000), children had very low food security (ERS key statistics).

The table shows the share of households that were food insecure in 2024, from ERR-358 table 2 (PDF).

Household group, 2024 Food insecure Very low food security
All households 13.7% 5.4%
With children under 18 18.4% 5.5%
With children under 6 17.8% 4.7%
Married couples with children 10.9% 2.7%
Single mothers with children (female head, no spouse) 36.8% 12.9%
Single fathers with children (male head, no spouse) 23.8% 5.8%
No children, more than one adult 9.4% 3.6%
Women living alone 16.2% 8.2%
Men living alone 14.7% 7.2%
With an adult 65 or older 9.9% 3.6%
Adult 65 or older living alone 11.3% 4.8%
White, non-Hispanic reference person 10.1% 4.1%
Black, non-Hispanic reference person 24.4% 10.5%
Hispanic reference person (any race) 20.2% 6.4%
Other, non-Hispanic reference person 11.9% 5.0%
Income below the poverty line 39.4% 17.6%
Income below 185% of poverty 32.8% 13.4%
Income at or above 185% of poverty 7.9% 3.0%
Principal cities 16.0% 6.7%
Suburbs (metro, outside principal cities) 11.9% 4.5%
Outside metro areas (rural) 15.9% 6.2%
Northeast 12.2% 4.8%
Midwest 13.3% 5.3%
South 15.0% 6.0%
West 12.9% 4.8%

The “reference person” is the adult in whose name the home is owned or rented. Very low food security among Black, non-Hispanic households rose from 8.7% in 2023 to 10.5% in 2024, one of the few significant changes that year (ERR-358).

About 58.9% of food-insecure households received SNAP, WIC or free or reduced-price school lunch in the month before the survey. Only 43.4% received SNAP (ERR-358).

Food insecurity by state

USDA combines three years of data so that each state has enough households for a reliable estimate. The table is ERR-358 table 4, averaging 2022 to 2024 (PDF, page 29). These are the last official state figures USDA will publish. The national three-year average is 13.3%, slightly below the single-year 2024 rate of 13.7%.

An asterisk means the state differs significantly from the U.S. average with 90% confidence. Food insecurity was significantly above average in six states: Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas. It was significantly below average in 16 states and the District of Columbia. Margins of error are wide, so many states that look different are not statistically distinguishable.

State Food insecure Margin of error (points) Very low food security
United States 13.3% ±0.40 5.2%
Alabama 12.1% ±2.23 4.6%
Alaska 13.0% ±2.53 6.5%
Arizona 13.1% ±1.68 5.6%
Arkansas 19.4%* ±1.67 7.6%*
California 12.5% ±0.82 4.4%*
Colorado 10.5%* ±1.94 4.3%
Connecticut 12.1% ±2.07 5.7%
Delaware 10.8%* ±1.97 4.5%
District of Columbia 10.3%* ±1.54 4.9%
Florida 13.3% ±1.28 4.8%
Georgia 14.6% ±1.95 5.9%
Hawaii 10.8%* ±1.79 4.5%
Idaho 12.6% ±1.72 4.5%
Illinois 13.3% ±1.54 4.8%
Indiana 13.7% ±1.66 5.9%
Iowa 10.8%* ±2.02 3.9%*
Kansas 12.5% ±1.54 4.9%
Kentucky 18.8%* ±2.80 9.0%*
Louisiana 17.7%* ±2.29 6.8%*
Maine 12.9% ±2.75 4.6%
Maryland 11.5%* ±1.79 4.8%
Massachusetts 11.7%* ±1.53 3.9%*
Michigan 14.7% ±1.99 6.3%
Minnesota 9.9%* ±1.69 3.7%*
Mississippi 17.3%* ±1.62 6.9%*
Missouri 13.3% ±2.16 5.9%
Montana 11.7% ±1.71 4.2%*
Nebraska 12.7% ±1.92 5.3%
Nevada 15.0% ±2.17 6.1%
New Hampshire 9.1%* ±1.81 4.4%
New Jersey 9.8%* ±1.43 3.5%*
New Mexico 14.5% ±2.20 6.5%
New York 14.0% ±1.29 5.6%
North Carolina 11.8% ±1.66 4.4%
North Dakota 9.0%* ±1.62 4.1%*
Ohio 14.2% ±1.45 6.2%*
Oklahoma 16.9%* ±2.78 6.0%
Oregon 12.5% ±2.37 5.7%
Pennsylvania 10.9%* ±1.30 3.7%*
Rhode Island 10.6%* ±2.58 5.1%
South Carolina 13.5% ±1.60 5.8%
South Dakota 9.5%* ±1.48 3.4%*
Tennessee 13.3% ±1.72 5.8%
Texas 17.6%* ±1.01 6.6%*
Utah 11.5%* ±1.59 4.3%
Vermont 9.4%* ±1.78 3.7%*
Virginia 12.4% ±1.69 5.3%
Washington 11.0%* ±1.17 3.9%*
West Virginia 14.1% ±1.86 4.3%
Wisconsin 12.0% ±1.75 4.4%
Wyoming 15.6% ±2.69 6.4%

Source: USDA ERS, Household Food Security in the United States in 2024, table 4. Margins of error are at 90% confidence.

For county and congressional district figures, use Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap (below). USDA does not publish below the state level.

Why USDA stopped the report

USDA’s September 20, 2025 press release called the reports “redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous.” It said food insecurity trends “remained virtually unchanged, regardless of an over 87% increase in SNAP spending between 2019 - 2023.” It said USDA would use “more timely and accurate data sets available to it,” without naming them.

The Food Research & Action Center criticized the decision. Its president, Crystal FitzSimons, said ending data collection would make hunger “a hidden crisis that is easier to ignore and more difficult to address” (FRAC, September 22, 2025). The Alliance to End Hunger wrote that the loss of the annual report would mean “an unfortunate lack of data following significant changes to federal nutrition programs” (January 12, 2026).

Household-level microdata for each year since 1995 remain available, with the December 2024 supplement documented as of February 18, 2026 (ERS data page).

Sources still measuring food insecurity in 2025 and 2026

Source Measure Latest period Geography Cadence and status Link
USDA ERS, Household Food Security Food insecure and very low food security, households, 12 months 2024 (states: 2022 to 2024) U.S., states Discontinued; 2024 is the final report ERR-358
Feeding America, Map the Meal Gap 2026 Modelled food insecurity, persons and children 2024 Counties, congressional districts, states Annual; released July 28, 2026; method for 2027 onward under review Map the Meal Gap 2026
Urban Institute, Well-Being and Basic Needs Survey Adults reporting household food insecurity, 12 months December 2025 U.S. Annual, fielded each December; published March 6, 2025 and March 18, 2026 Urban Institute
Census Bureau, Household Pulse (HTOPS) Food insufficiency, adults, last 7 days July 15 to August 3, 2026 U.S. Periodic; experimental data Census tables
Purdue, Consumer Food Insights Food insecurity, adults, last 30 days, 6 questions December 2025 U.S. Ended; reports ran January 2022 to April 2026 Purdue
USDA FNA, SNAP data tables Program participation, not food insecurity June 2026 (preliminary) U.S., states Monthly FNA

Map the Meal Gap 2026. Feeding America’s estimates for 2024 were released July 28, 2026. More than 8 in 10 counties with the highest estimated food insecurity are rural or in the South. Child food insecurity reached an estimated 45% in Lee County, Arkansas, and 43% in New York’s 15th Congressional District (the Bronx). An estimated 7.7 million people 60 and older (9.5%) and 4.9 million people aged 50 to 59 (12.4%) were food insecure. About 25 million people in food-insecure households had incomes too high to qualify for federal nutrition assistance. People in food-insecure households said they needed $23.16 more per person per week, or $33.7 billion in total (Feeding America). The national average cost of a meal was $3.70 (Map the Meal Gap reports). Its national total of 47.9 million people comes from USDA. The local numbers are modelled from Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics data on unemployment, poverty and other factors, not counted in each county. Feeding America says it will keep estimating local food insecurity and is exploring “alternative data sources” for 2027 and beyond, because USDA has stopped collecting the data it relied on.

Urban Institute WBNS. In December 2025, 24.2% of adults 18 and older reported household food insecurity in the last 12 months. Among adults 18 to 64 the rate was 27.7%. It was 32.0% for working-age adults living with children, and about half of those households had very low food security. The rate was 51.0% for working-age adults below 200% of the poverty level. For those between 200% and 400% of poverty it rose from 30.6% in 2024 to 34.2% in 2025 (Urban Institute). The 2024 round found 27.1% of adults 18 to 64 food insecure, against 22.4% in 2019. In 2024, 17.6% of adults 18 to 64 reported getting charitable food, up from 12.1% in 2019 (Urban Institute, March 2025). The survey had more than 7,500 adults aged 18 to 64 in each round through 2024 and added 2,500 adults 65 and older in 2025. The all-adult 24.2% is lower than the 27.7% working-age figure because older adults report less food insecurity, not because hardship fell.

Census Household Pulse. The original Household Pulse Survey ended cross-sectional collection on September 16, 2024. It relaunched in January 2025 inside the Household Trends and Outlook Pulse Survey (HTOPS), which went back to a cross-sectional design in March 2026 (Census). In the July 15 to August 3, 2026 collection, 18,153,034 of 261,534,494 adults lived in households that sometimes or often did not have enough to eat in the last 7 days (food1.xlsx). That is 6.9% of all adults, or 7.4% of those who answered (derived: 18,153,034 divided by 261,534,494, and by 246,135,188 after removing 15,399,306 non-respondents). Census labels these data experimental. The table is national only.

Purdue Consumer Food Insights. Food insecurity was 14% in December 2025, and 14.2% for 2025 as a whole, 1.7 points above 2024 (Purdue, January 2026). The survey used six standard questions about the past 30 days, an online opt-in panel of about 1,200 adults, and classed respondents above 185% of poverty as food secure (August 2025 report). Purdue’s center has closed, and the last report was published in April 2026 (Purdue).

Why the numbers disagree

  • Households vs adults. USDA reports shares of households. Urban, Census and Purdue report shares of adults, so their rates are not shares of the same thing.
  • Reference period. USDA and Urban ask about the past 12 months. Purdue asked about 30 days and Census about 7 days. Shorter windows catch fewer people.
  • Questions. USDA uses an 18-item scale for households with children and 10 items for others. Purdue used 6 items. Census asks one food sufficiency question.
  • Age. Urban’s 27.7% covers ages 18 to 64 only. Its 24.2% includes adults 65 and older, who report less hardship.
  • Survey method. USDA’s supplement rides on the Current Population Survey, a large probability sample. Urban uses a probability-based online panel. Purdue used an opt-in online panel.
  • Modelled vs surveyed. Map the Meal Gap predicts county rates from local economic data. It is the right tool for comparing places, but it does not survey each county.

Food deserts and food access

The USDA Food Access Research Atlas maps census tracts that are low income and far from food stores. A tract is low income if its poverty rate is at least 20% or its median family income is at or below 80% of the state or metro median (ERS, EIB-236).

  • In 2019, 11% to 27% of the U.S. population lived in low-income, low-access tracts, depending on the distance used (EIB-236, June 2022).
  • In 2019, 40% of the population lived more than 1 mile from a food store, 30% lived within half a mile, and 30% between half a mile and 1 mile (EIB-236).
  • Under the 1-mile urban and 10-mile rural definition, the number of low-income, low-access tracts rose by 48 (0.5%) between 2015 and 2019 (EIB-236).
  • The Atlas, updated August 19, 2026, now has two maps. The Large Retailer Access Map (supermarkets, supercenters, large grocery stores) was last updated in 2021, with the next update expected in winter 2026 to 2027. The SNAP-authorized Retailer Access Map was first released in July 2026 (ERS).

Food access and food insecurity overlap but are different measures. A household can live next to a supermarket and still be unable to afford food.

SNAP and food bank context

SNAP enrollment is a count of people in the program, not a measure of food insecurity. In June 2026 there were 36,352,716 SNAP participants in 19,807,327 households, with an average benefit of $186.53 per person per month (preliminary, USDA FNA). That is 6,063,001 fewer participants than in January 2025 (14.3% lower). It is 5,250,332 fewer than in July 2025 (12.6% lower). Both figures are derived from the same FNA table. In FY2025, an average of 42,145,499 people received SNAP each month (same file).

The 2025 budget reconciliation law (P.L. 119-21, enacted July 4, 2025) changed SNAP in several ways, as summarized by the Congressional Research Service:

  • Work requirements for adults without dependents now extend to ages 55 to 64 and to adults living with children 14 to 17.
  • Starting in FY2028, states with payment error rates of 6% or more pay 5% to 15% of benefit costs.
  • The state share of administrative costs rises from 50% to 75%.
  • Additional groups of noncitizens, such as refugees and asylees, are no longer eligible.
  • SNAP-Ed nutrition education loses its mandatory funding.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the nutrition provisions would cut federal spending by almost $187 billion over FY2025 to FY2034. CBO also estimated the work-requirement changes would reduce participation by 2.4 million people in an average month (CRS summary of CBO).

Food bank figures come from Feeding America, the largest network. In FY2025 (July 2024 to June 2025), its network distributed 5.9 billion meals, sourced 7.2 billion pounds of food and rescued 4.3 billion pounds. The network has more than 250 food banks and 60,000 faith-based and community partners (Feeding America annual report 2025). Feeding America counts a meal as 1.2 pounds of food.

Which number to cite in a grant proposal

  • National baseline: cite USDA’s 13.7% of households (2024) and name it as the final USDA estimate. For example: “In 2024, 13.7% of U.S. households were food insecure (USDA ERS, ERR-358, December 2025), the last year USDA measured.”
  • State: cite your state’s 2022 to 2024 average from the table above and say it is a three-year average.
  • County or district: use Map the Meal Gap 2026 (2024 data), and say the figures are modelled estimates from Feeding America.
  • Something more recent: add Urban’s December 2025 adult figure and label it as adults, not households.
  • Demand on your program: pair food insecurity with SNAP enrollment changes for your state from the FNA tables, and with your own service counts.
  • Do not add or subtract rates from different sources, or present a 2025 survey figure as a change from USDA’s 2024 rate.

Method

Figures were taken from the primary page or file and opened on October 4, 2026. State rates were transcribed from ERR-358 table 4 and checked against the report’s list of states above and below the national average. Derived figures (the HTOPS percentage and the SNAP declines) show their arithmetic where they appear. Where two USDA pages differ, the page says so. The ERS summary page lists 12.3 million adults in households with very low food security, while ERR-358 lists 12.4 million. Neither figure appears above.

Sources

This guide was researched with Hyperresearch: its runs gathered the sources, every figure was then checked by hand against the page it links to, and the text was edited by Jordan Gibbs.

By Jordan Gibbs · Updated 2026-10-04