Humana Employees Pack Meals to Fight Food Insecurity in Kentucky
Humana employees joined forces with PackHope and Metro United Way to pack meals during Humana Community Day at Louisville Slugger Field in Louisville, Kentucky, on Thursday, September 4, 2025. The meals assembled were distributed to residents in Louisville and Lexington to help address food insecurity in the state.
Across the country, thousands of Humana employees volunteer on Humana Community Day, supporting various causes including food and nutrition needs, military families, and urban green spaces.
(Photo credit: Brian Bohannon/AP Content Services for Humana)
USDA Ends Decades-Long Food Security Tracking Amid Rising Food Insecurity
The Trump administration has announced the termination of the annual Household Food Security reports, a decades-long USDA effort to track food security in the United States. These reports, introduced in the 1990s, have been essential for helping state and federal officials plan food assistance programs.
The latest USDA report, published in September 2024, revealed that approximately 18 million U.S. households experienced food insecurity at some point during 2023 — an increase of one million households compared to 2022.
In announcing the cancellation, the Department of Agriculture stated, “These redundant, costly, politicized and extraneous studies do nothing more than fearmonger.”
The decision was first reported by the Wall Street Journal and comes as the USDA was preparing to release data from its 2024 survey.
Political Controversies and Data Scrutiny
This move is part of a broader pattern where the Trump administration has scrutinized federal data it views as politically motivated. For example, Erika McEntarfer, former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was ousted after revised data showed slower job growth in May and June, with President Trump criticizing her as a Biden appointee overseeing allegedly “faked” job numbers.
Kyle Ross, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, challenged the administration’s claims of politicization. He noted that the USDA food security survey has been consistently produced annually by both Republican and Democratic administrations for nearly 30 years.
“It is also not redundant, as this survey serves as the official data source of food insecurity statistics,” Ross said via email.
The White House has yet to comment on the cancellation.
Concerns Amid USDA Program Cuts
The decision to end the report coincides with significant cuts to USDA programs that supply food to schools and food banks, raising alarms among aid organizations supporting millions of Americans facing hunger.
In July, Congress passed legislation reducing federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps.
Barbara Laraia, professor and chair of the Food Nutrition and Population Health Program at the University of California at Berkeley, described the USDA report as “the gold standard” for studying food insecurity in the U.S.
“It has helped us measure how the federal food programs are working,” Laraia explained.
Understanding Food Insecurity
Laraia highlighted the importance of using the term “food insecurity” instead of “hunger” to encompass a broader range of factors beyond the physical sensation of hunger. Researchers investigating food insecurity often examine how households adjust eating behaviors to make ends meet or whether families access sufficient nutrients to maintain health.
The 2023 USDA survey found that about 6.8 million American households experienced a more severe form of food insecurity. Laraia emphasized that families facing this level of insecurity “absolutely feel hunger.”
“It’s not uncommon to hear of people skipping meals, going an entire day without eating, or losing weight due to lack of food,” she said.
When families face financial pressures such as inflation, rising housing costs, and increased food prices, they typically prioritize fixed expenses like rent, transportation, and utilities — often at the expense of their food budget.
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https://www.phillytrib.com/news/health/trump-ends-annual-report-on-u-s-hunger-amid-rising-food-insecurity/article_85b05496-a7c6-4959-802f-1eb6a617c8c4.html
