What are the latest USDA reports on food insecurity and mortality?
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Executive summary
USDA’s Economic Research Service reported that 13.5% of U.S. households—about 47.4 million people—experienced food insecurity in 2023, with 8.9% of households with children affected and notable disparities by race, family structure, and state [1] [2] [3]. Separately, USDA analysis and linked federal data show rising mortality disparities: natural-cause (disease-related) death rates for prime working-age adults rose in many rural areas, widening the rural–urban gap between 1999–2001 and 2017–2019 [4] [5], while CDC provisional and final mortality products document overall declines in age-adjusted death rates in 2023 and detailed provisional 2024 data [6] [7] [8].
1. USDA’s headline: food insecurity climbed and the ERS data quantify it
USDA’s ERS presents the official Household Food Security measures showing 13.5% of U.S. households were food insecure in 2023—an increase from prior years—and provides interactive charts and state breakdowns that underpin that national figure and the count of people affected [1] [2]. The ERS materials explain the survey definitions (food insecure, low food security, very low food security) and the frequency analyses used to clarify whether insecurity was episodic or persistent [9] [10].
2. Who is worst hit: children, single-parent and minority households
ERS and secondary reporting emphasize concentrated burdens: households with children had higher-than-average food insecurity, 8.9% of households with children experienced child food insecurity, and single-parent households and Black and Hispanic households had rates well above the national average [2] [3]. Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap and other groups use ERS inputs to produce county-level and demographic estimates, highlighting geographic and racial disparities [11].
3. The report’s future is in question — USDA ended the annual survey
In September 2025 USDA announced it would terminate future Household Food Security Reports, calling them “redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous,” and the last scheduled ERS release would cover 2024 data (final report expected October 2025), a decision that researchers and advocacy groups say will create an information gap [12] [13] [14] [15]. Advocates warn losing this standardized time series undermines policymakers’ ability to monitor how policy changes — including SNAP adjustments — affect hunger [13] [14].
4. Independent trackers and models will try to fill the void
Academic centers and nonprofits are already producing alternate estimates: Purdue’s CFDAS reported rising food insecurity through late 2025 using monthly survey modules (not the federal ERS annual instrument), and Columbia’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy described modeling approaches to predict national food-insecurity rates once official collection ended [16] [15]. These alternatives use different methods and sampling frames; ERS advocates argue none match the scope of the long-running USDA instrument [13] [15].
5. Mortality trends: USDA flags a widening rural–urban disease mortality gap
ERS analysis of CDC mortality data finds that natural-cause mortality rates for prime working-age adults (25–54) increased in many rural places between 1999–2001 and 2017–2019, producing a 43% higher natural-cause death rate in rural prime-age populations by 2019 compared with urban counterparts; this widening gap spans several major disease categories [4] [5]. ERS links those shifts to economic and healthcare access differences that could have far-reaching community and labor-market effects [4].
6. National mortality context from CDC: improving overall, but with troubling subgroup trends
CDC’s final 2023 mortality report shows age-specific death rates fell for most age groups and life expectancy rebounded in 2023 relative to 2022, while provisional 2024 mortality products provide up-to-date counts and cause breakdowns for researchers—indicating both recovery from pandemic-era excess deaths and persistent disparities across race, geography, and cause [8] [6] [7]. Separate research and commentaries highlight that early-adult mortality increases and slower long-term mortality improvements remain critical concerns [17] [18].
7. Where food insecurity and mortality intersect — and where reporting gaps matter
ERS and external researchers link economic stressors (inflation, SNAP changes) to rising food hardship and note that communities with worse socioeconomic indicators also face higher mortality from natural causes; the USDA’s termination of the annual food-security report removes a key standardized indicator that policymakers and researchers use to explore connections between nutrition, chronic disease, and mortality [1] [4] [13] [14]. Scholars and advocates argue that without ERS’s continuity, assessing causal links and tracking the effects of programmatic changes will be harder [15] [13].
Limitations and competing perspectives: USDA defends ending the ERS food-security report as redundant and costly [12] [14]; critics and many researchers counter that no alternate data product replicates the depth, continuity, and official status of the ERS series [13] [15]. Available sources do not mention specific causal estimates tying the 2023 food-insecurity rise directly to particular SNAP policy changes beyond correlations noted by advocacy groups and researchers (not found in current reporting).