Trump cut to food security survey could make measuring US hunger harder [View all]

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/trump-cut-food-security-survey-could-make-measuring-us-hunger-harder-2026-07-09/

Trump cut to food security survey could make measuring US hunger harder
By Leah Douglas
July 9, 2026 5:02 AM CDT

WASHINGTON, July 9 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's cancellation last year of a government food security survey could make it difficult to assess whether ​his cuts to the food stamp program lead to a rise in U.S. hunger, especially among children.

Trump's tax and spending law signed last July shifted significant Supplemental Nutrition Assistance ‌Program spending to states and expanded work requirements, among other changes.

Since then, 4.7 million people -- about 11% of participants -- have lost SNAP benefits, or food stamps, with that figure expected to rise as states continue implementing the changes.

Trump, a Republican, last September canceled the U.S. Department of Agriculture's survey, which for 30 years served as a measure of a household's access to enough food for a healthy lifestyle.

At the time, the USDA called the survey, which officials used ​to inform policy and agency programs, "redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous," in a press release.

Yet that report was the "gold standard" for understanding food access, said Craig Gundersen, an economist at Baylor ​University.



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