USDA cancelled 30-year Household Food Security Report; placed ERS researchers on leave for disclosing decision

On September 22, 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cancelled its annual Household Food Security Report, the federal government's authoritative 30-year measure of hunger and food insecurity in the United States, and placed approximately a dozen Economic Research Service economists, researchers, supervisors, and administrators on indefinite paid administrative leave. USDA told the employees their leave was due to an "unauthorized disclosure" and targeted those who had been present at meetings where the decision to cancel the report was discussed. The report, produced annually since 1995, had been the primary federal data source used by Congress, federal courts, advocates, and program administrators to track hunger trends and evaluate the reach of nutrition programs including SNAP, WIC, and school meals.

The cancellation removed the only comprehensive federal measure of food insecurity in the country, eliminating a data baseline that had informed congressional appropriations for decades. USDA officials told the employees their leave "is not a disciplinary action," but simultaneously framed the basis as a disclosure violation involving those present at the cancellation meetings — a framing that cast disclosure of the decision itself as misconduct. The union representing the workers noted the pattern resembled earlier USDA and administration-wide moves to sideline scientists and researchers who produce data the administration found politically inconvenient.

The employees were placed on leave not for any scientific error or misconduct, but for disclosing that the report had been cancelled — a government data decision with direct consequences for the programs serving millions of Americans who rely on federal nutrition assistance.