2024 U.S. Food Insecurity: New Data and the End of an Era in Hunger Tracking
January 21, 2026
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Household Food Security in the United States in 2024 report reveals that hunger remains a serious challenge across the nation. According to this newly released data, 13.7% of American households – nearly 1 in 7 – experienced food insecurity in 2024, meaning they lacked consistent access to an affordable, nutritious diet at some point during the year. This level is slightly higher than in recent years, marking a roughly 3 percentage point rise over the past three years and reaching a ten-year high above pre-pandemic levels. Troublingly, this comprehensive annual survey may also be the last of its kind, as USDA has announced plans to terminate future food security data collection – a decision that experts warn could create a dangerous information gap. Below, we break down the key findings from the 2024 report and explore why ending this decades-long tracking of hunger in America matters.
Food Insecurity in 2024: Key Statistics
The latest data, gathered through the Census Bureau’s December 2024 Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement, highlights that hunger and hardship remain widespread in the United States:
Overall prevalence – 13.7% of U.S. households (about 18.3 million households) were food insecure in 2024. In total, an estimated 47.9 million people lived in food-insecure households during the year. These households at times struggled to afford enough food for all members because of a lack of money or other resources.
Severity of hunger – Within that group, 5.4% of households faced very low food security. Very low food security is the most severe form of food insecurity, in which one or more household members had to cut down on meals or go hungry at times due to insufficient funds for food. This statistic was up slightly from 5.1% in 2023, indicating that millions of Americans experienced episodes of disrupted eating and hunger last year.
Households with children – Families with kids continued to be especially vulnerable. Approximately 18.4% of households with children had some level of food insecurity in 2024 – a higher rate than the national average. In total, 14.1 million children lived in food-insecure households during the year. Many parents did their best to shield children from hardship: only 0.9% of households with children experienced very low food security among children, the most extreme situation where children themselves had to skip meals due to lack of food. Still, the share of children in food-insecure homes remains the highest since 2014, underscoring that nearly 1 in 5 kids in America (over 14 million) are growing up in families that struggle to put food on the table.
Differences in food spending – The report found a stark gap in grocery spending between food-secure and food-insecure families. In 2024, the typical food-secure household spent about 11% more on food than a comparable food-insecure household of the same size and composition. This suggests that constrained budgets force food-insecure families to cut back on nutrition, even as food prices have remained high.
Use of nutrition assistance programs – Federal food assistance plays a crucial role for many struggling households. In the month before the survey, about 58.9% of food-insecure households participated in at least one of the three largest federal nutrition programs – namely the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), or the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). This highlights how millions rely on SNAP benefits, WIC vouchers, and school meals to help alleviate food hardships. (Notably, the 2024 survey was conducted just as temporary pandemic-era expansions to these programs had ended and new SNAP work requirements were slated to take effect, creating concerns about deeper hunger in 2025.)
Who Was Hit Hardest? Disparities in Food Security
Food insecurity does not affect all communities equally – the 2024 data show wide disparities by household type, race, and region. Some groups experienced substantially higher rates of hunger than the national average, reflecting underlying economic and social inequalities:
Single-parent families – Households headed by single mothers faced the highest reported rates of food hardship. In 2024, over one-third (36.8%) of single-parent households led by women were food insecure, a jump from 34.7% the year before. This means nearly 4 in 10 single moms struggled to afford enough food, far above the overall 13.7% rate, underscoring the economic pressures on many women raising children alone.
Racial and ethnic disparities – Hunger continued to disproportionately impact Black and Latino communities. Black households had a 24.4% food insecurity rate in 2024, and Latino (Latinx) households 20.2%, both significantly higher than White non-Latino households (10.1%). In fact, Black families were more than twice as likely as White families to experience food insecurity. These racial disparities in food security mirror broader inequities in income, wealth, and access to resources. The majority of people living in food-insecure households nationwide are White (simply due to population size), but Black and Hispanic Americans face elevated risk on a per-household basis.
Geography – region and community type: Where a family lives also influences food security. The Southern region had the highest household food insecurity rate at 15.0% (averaged over 2022–2024), according to the report. By community type, urban (16.0%) and rural (15.9%) households experienced higher food insecurity rates than suburban households (11.9%). In other words, big cities and remote rural areas saw roughly 1.5 times the level of hunger found in suburbs. This urban–rural gap highlights that both inner-city poverty and rural economic challenges contribute to food hardship, while more affluent suburbs have lower incidence.
Seniors – Food insecurity is also rising among older Americans. In 2024, an estimated 11% of individuals in households with a senior aged 65+ experienced food insecurity, up from about 10% in 2023. This increase means over one million more senior citizens lived in food-insecure homes compared to the prior year. Seniors on fixed incomes have been strained by high inflation in grocery prices, and cuts to programs like SNAP (which many low-income seniors rely on) threaten to exacerbate this trend.
These figures make clear that food insecurity in the U.S. is not monolithic – it disproportionately affects children in low-income families, single mothers, communities of color, rural and urban households, and even a growing number of seniors. Tracking these disparities is essential for targeting assistance to the populations that need it most.
The End of USDA’s Annual Food Security Survey
For three decades, the USDA’s annual food security report has been a cornerstone for understanding hunger in America. The statistics above come from a rigorous survey that the government has conducted every year since the mid-1990s, providing an invaluable continuous record of food insecurity trends. However, 2024’s report may be the last in this long-running series. The USDA’s Economic Research Service confirmed that it will cease collecting and publishing the annual food security data after this year. In fact, the scheduled December 2025 Food Security Supplement survey was canceled by the current administration, effectively terminating the yearly hunger report going forward.
Why end this report now? According to USDA officials, the decision (announced in September 2025) was part of a broader effort to review program costs and eliminate reports deemed not worth their expense. The Trump administration– which took office in early 2025 – opted to discontinue the survey as a cost-saving measure, questioning the value of continuing to produce it annually. Some have speculated that political motives could also be at play, given that the data highlights persistent hunger during a time when major SNAP cuts and policy changes are happening. Regardless of the reasoning, the result is that after 30 years, the federal government will no longer provide this yearly benchmark on household hunger.
The move to end the report has alarmed anti-hunger advocates, researchers, and even some lawmakers. Bread for the World, a leading hunger-focused nonprofit, noted that the Household Food Security report has long “provided a firm foundation of data for lawmakers and advocates focused on eliminating hunger”. Shutting it down now, just as food insecurity remains elevated, is seen as a step backward in transparency. As Bread for the World’s CEO criticized, halting data collection means “lawmakers, advocates, researchers and the public will be unable to see the impacts of legislation and programs designed to target food insecurity” going forward. In other words, ending this report won’t end hunger – it will only make the problem harder to see.
Notably, Congress has already taken steps to try to reverse this decision. In late 2025, a bipartisan bill called the Food Assurance and Security Act (H.R. 6252) was introduced with the explicit aim of protecting the annual food security survey and report. Anti-hunger organizations are urging lawmakers to pass this bill quickly. “Eliminating this annual data will not end food insecurity, it will only hide the struggle that millions of families face to put food on the table,”warned the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) in a statement, calling on Congress to act. Alongside preserving the survey, advocates are also pushing for the Restoring Food Security for American Families and Farmers Act of 2025, which would roll back the recent SNAP benefit cuts that risk driving hunger higher. As of early 2026, the fate of these efforts, and the future of U.S. hunger data , remains uncertain
