Food Insecurity
In the wealthiest country in history, one in seven households can't reliably afford enough food — and the number has climbed for three straight years, even as the government just stopped measuring it.
The short version
- The USDA's final report found 13.7% of U.S. households — about 18 million — were food insecure at some point in 2024, meaning they lacked consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life; 5.4% experienced very low food security, the more severe form where people skip meals or eat less because they run out of money.
- Food insecurity has risen for three consecutive years, from a two-decade low of 10.2% in 2021 — when pandemic-era aid like the expanded Child Tax Credit and boosted SNAP benefits was in place — to 13.7% in 2024 after those programs expired.
- Nearly 1 in 5 households with children (18.4%) were food insecure in 2024, and the burden is deeply unequal: Black (24.4%), Hispanic (20.2%), and Native American (30.9%) households face rates roughly double or triple those of white households (10.1%).
- Food insecurity is fundamentally a problem of income, not food supply — the U.S. produces more than enough food; the issue is that low-wage work and a high cost of living leave millions unable to buy it. In late 2025 the administration ended the annual survey that has tracked this measure since 1995, just as scheduled SNAP cuts were set to push the numbers higher.
What it is
Food insecurity is the condition of lacking reliable access to enough affordable, nutritious food. It is a household-level economic measure, not a clinical diagnosis of hunger: a family is counted as food insecure if, at any point during the year, limited money or resources forced them to worry about running out of food, buy cheaper and less nutritious food, cut portion sizes, or skip meals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has measured it since 1995 through an annual supplement to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, asking a standardized battery of 18 questions. Responses sort households into a spectrum: food secure, low food security (reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet, but not necessarily reduced intake), and very low food security (disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake because there wasn't enough money).
The distinction between low and very low food security matters because it separates 'stretching the budget' from 'going without.' In 2024, of the 13.7% of households that were food insecure, 8.3 percentage points were in the low category and 5.4 points in the very low category. Very low food security is where the concept overlaps with what most people picture as hunger: adults reporting they ate less than they felt they should, were hungry but didn't eat, or lost weight because they couldn't afford food. Because the measure captures anything that happened at any time during the year, it counts households whose insecurity was episodic — triggered by a lost shift, a car repair, or a benefit cliff — not only those who are chronically deprived.
Food insecurity is not driven by a shortage of food. The United States is the world's largest agricultural exporter and wastes an estimated 30–40% of its food supply. What drives food insecurity is the gap between household income and the cost of living: when wages, benefits, and other income can't cover rent, utilities, transportation, health care, and food, food is often the most elastic item in the budget — the bill you can shrink this week by eating less or eating worse. This is why food insecurity tracks closely with poverty, unemployment, the minimum wage, and housing costs, and why it is best understood as a symptom of economic precarity rather than an isolated problem of nutrition.
The primary public response is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly food stamps, which in fiscal year 2024 served an average of 41.7 million people per month at a federal cost of about $99.8 billion, providing roughly $187 per person per month. SNAP is complemented by WIC (for pregnant women, infants, and young children), the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, and a vast network of private food banks coordinated largely through Feeding America. Research consistently finds SNAP is one of the most effective anti-poverty and anti-hunger programs the country runs — but its benefit levels are modest, average about $6 per person per day, and it leaves gaps that charitable food assistance is left to fill.
By the numbers
Why it matters
Food insecurity is a leading indicator of economic distress that shows up in the body. Children who experience it are at higher risk of developmental delays, poorer academic performance, and chronic conditions like anemia and asthma; food-insecure adults have higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, and depression, partly because the cheapest calories are often the least nutritious. These health effects generate downstream costs — emergency room visits, missed school and work, managed chronic disease — that are borne by public budgets and the wider economy. Hunger in a rich country is not only a moral failure; it is an expensive one, paid for later and elsewhere.
The three-year rise from the 2021 low is one of the clearest natural experiments in recent U.S. social policy. When the pandemic-era expansions — the enhanced Child Tax Credit, emergency SNAP allotments, and stimulus payments — were in force, food insecurity fell to its lowest level in the history of the measure. When they lapsed, it climbed back above pre-pandemic levels. That sequence is strong evidence that food insecurity is highly responsive to cash and near-cash support, and that the country knows how to reduce hunger and has repeatedly chosen to let the tools expire. It reframes hunger as a policy choice rather than an intractable condition.
The steep disparities by race, household composition, and geography mean food insecurity is not evenly shared pain but a fault line that tracks the country's other inequalities. Native American households (30.9%), Black households (24.4%), households with children (18.4%), and single-mother families (well above the national average) bear rates far above the 13.7% headline. These are the same populations most exposed to low-wage work, unstable housing, and thin safety nets — which is why food insecurity is best read alongside the minimum wage, the wealth gap, and the housing crisis rather than in isolation.
The decision to end the annual food security survey in late 2025 — just as Congress enacted the largest SNAP cuts in the program's history — removes the primary tool the public has for knowing whether those cuts make hunger worse. For three decades this survey has been the authoritative, nonpartisan yardstick; without it, changes in policy can no longer be measured against changes in hunger. What you cannot measure, you cannot be held accountable for — which is precisely why a consistent, long-running national statistic is itself a form of accountability, and why its discontinuation matters beyond the numbers themselves.
Sources & Further Reading
- Household Food Security in the United States in 2024 (ERR-358)
- Food Security in the U.S. — Interactive Charts and Highlights
- SNAP — Key Statistics and Research
- Food Insecurity Remained High in 2024, Administration Ends Data Collection Before SNAP Cuts Push It Higher
- What the data says about food stamps in the U.S.