Purdue University reports that about 14% of U.S. households were food insecure on average between January and October, up from 12.5% in 2024. Experts attribute the rise to grocery prices that remain well above pre-pandemic levels even as overall inflation has slowed. An estimated 2.4 million SNAP recipients could lose benefits under new work requirements in a recently passed bill, a change that could worsen food insecurity. Purdue's survey has gained attention after the USDA canceled its long-running national food security survey.
Grocery Prices Keep Food Insecurity Rising: Purdue Survey Shows About 14% of U.S. Households Affected
Purdue University reports that about 14% of U.S. households were food insecure on average between January and October, up from 12.5% in 2024. Experts attribute the rise to grocery prices that remain well above pre-pandemic levels even as overall inflation has slowed. An estimated 2.4 million SNAP recipients could lose benefits under new work requirements in a recently passed bill, a change that could worsen food insecurity. Purdue's survey has gained attention after the USDA canceled its long-running national food security survey.
05:39 AM, 11/14/2025Economy
Food insecurity edges up as grocery costs stay well above pre-pandemic levels
A new report from Purdue University's Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability finds that the share of Americans reporting difficulty affording food has risen this year amid persistently high grocery prices. On average from January through October, roughly 14% of U.S. households reported food insecurity, up from 12.5% in 2024.
While monthly rates vary across the country, the overall trend had been downward since 2022, when about 15.4% of households were food insecure as inflation surged to 40-year highs after the pandemic. Experts say the recent uptick is driven in part by food prices that remain far above pre-pandemic levels even though overall inflation has slowed.
'Even though inflation slowed a lot this year, we're nowhere near the amount that we were spending on food even just a couple of years ago,' said Poonam Gupta, a research associate at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C.
Gupta also warned that policy changes could worsen the situation for many families: an estimated 2.4 million SNAP recipients might lose benefits in 2026 under new work requirements included in the Republican-backed tax and spending bill that was signed into law in July.
Purdue defines food insecurity as situations where some members of a household sometimes cannot afford a balanced meal or occasionally skip meals or eat less because of financial constraints.
With the U.S. Department of Agriculture canceling its long-running Household Food Security survey in September — a national survey conducted annually since 2001 — Purdue's polling has become one of the few remaining national indicators of food insecurity. The administration said the USDA survey was 'redundant, costly, politicized and extraneous' when it was scrapped.
Researchers say the USDA measure had been widely respected. Craig Gundersen, an economics professor at Baylor University who has studied food insecurity for three decades, called the USDA survey the 'gold standard measure.' Joseph Balagtas, director of Purdue's center, noted Purdue surveys about 1,200 adults per month, compared with roughly 30,000 people surveyed annually by the USDA. Despite the smaller sample, Purdue uses the same core questions and statistical weighting to produce results that generally track federal measures.
Why it matters: Rising food insecurity affects household health and economic stability, and potential policy changes to SNAP eligibility could increase hardship for millions of people already struggling with high food costs.