Letter: Adams, Lawmakers Call on USDA to Reinstate Household Food Security Reports

WASHINGTON, DC-Today, Congresswoman Alma S. Adams, Ph.D. (NC-12), senior member of the House Agriculture Committee,along with Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (MN-02), Vice Ranking Member Shontel Brown (OH-11), Nutrition and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee Ranking Member Jahana Hayes (CT-05), and Congressman Jim McGovern (MA-02)led a lettercalling on U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins to reinstate the Household Food Security Reports, a comprehensive, consistent report that measures food insecurity on the national and state levels.

On September 20, 2025, the USDA announced the cancellation of the reports, calling the survey "redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous."

In the letter, lawmakers expressed concern over how cutting the reports will impact food security monitoring in the U.S.: "They are the most important high-quality, consistent measure of national and state-level food insecurity we have in the U.S., giving us critical insight into how many Americans each year have to cut the size of meals or were hungry because they had too little money for food. In the most recent report, ERS found that, in 2023, 47.4 million Americans lived in food-insecure households, including 13.8 million children; 12.2 million people lived in households with very low food security."

The letter emphasized how eliminating the reports comes as Americans navigate unprecedented cuts to food security programs in the Republican "One Big Beautiful Bill Act": "Non-partisan estimates project that the law will cut SNAP benefits for all participants by an average of $168 per year and further reduce or eliminate food assistance entirely from 4 million Americans, at minimum. In the wake of its passage, it will be more important than ever to understand how many Americans are living with food insecurity. The administration is choosing to eliminate the report instead of facing the consequences of its actions."

Facing claims that the reports are "politicized", lawmakers highlighted that it was created as a bipartisan effort, saying, "the report is the result of years of bipartisan work to establish better measurements and understanding of food insecurity in America. While the first report was issued during the Clinton administration, it originated from a Reagan administration task force on food assistance… Five years later, a bipartisan bill to strengthen food and nutrition data collection - the National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act of 1990 (NNMRR) - garnered unanimous support in both the House and Senate and was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush."

Lawmakers concluded by saying, "Understanding who is hungry in America is not "unnecessary to carry out the work of the Department." It is vital. We urge you to quickly reinstate the ERS employees that have been placed on administrative leave and to continue issuing the Household Food Security Report and conducting the critical Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement annually."

The letter called for a response from the USDA no later than October 6, 2025.

The full letter can be found here.