WASHINGTON, DC – Over the weekend, the Trump administration announced the termination of the Department of Agriculture’s annual survey of food security in the United States. The National WIC Association strongly condemns this shortsighted action and urges the Department to reverse course immediately.
The following is a statement from Georgia Machell, President and CEO of the National WIC Association:
We are alarmed by USDA’s decision to cancel the annual food security survey, which for nearly three decades has been the nation’s most critical tool for monitoring long-term trends in hunger and food insecurity. No comparable, nationwide survey exists. Programs like WIC rely on these national-level data to understand the broader picture of hunger and food insecurity in our nation, allowing resources to be directed where they are most needed.
This validated survey has received bipartisan support for decades and uses a robust methodology to capture the landscape of food insecurity in America over time. USDA has acknowledged that the survey supports evidence-based policy and program development. Food insecurity is not an abstract concept for 18 million households across the U.S; those families are experiencing it in very real ways. By choosing to end the one survey that tracks the extent of food insecurity, the administration is indicating that making sure every household in America can access adequate, nutritious food is not important. Eliminating it undermines the nation’s ability to understand which policies are effective.
It is deeply troubling that the Trump administration would cancel this annual survey, particularly in the wake of deep cuts to the social safety net in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Food insecurity is driven by many factors: unemployment, food costs, inflation, and more. This decision is a thinly veiled attempt to obscure the harms of the administration’s policies, at the expense of families who struggle every day to put food on the table. Ceasing to measure hunger will not end it; it will only hamper the ability of programs like WIC to address it. The National WIC Association calls on USDA to reinstate the survey so that policymakers, researchers, and communities can continue to confront hunger with evidence, accountability, and integrity.”