For three decades, the USDA’s Household Food Security Report gave the country a reliable read on hunger. It was not just the national rate, but who was struggling, where need was concentrated, and how conditions changed over time. Policymakers, funders, and hunger relief organizations all relied on it.
Then in 2025, the USDA discontinued the report, with no national replacement.
In a recent op-ed in the Tribune-Review, our Director of Data and Analytics, Sean Hudson, explains why that decision matters so much right now. The USDA justified the cut by pointing to flat national trends, but averages hide the wide variation across states and counties, and even small shifts in the national rate represent millions of people. Worse, the survey was ended just as the deepest SNAP and WIC cuts on record began taking effect, leaving the country without a way to measure their impact at the moment it matters most. Read Sean’s op-ed in TribLIVE.
We can’t restore the national survey. But we can make sure the people bridging the gap between surplus food and hungry neighbors can still see where the need is.
Enter the Community Need Index
We built the Community Need Index (CNI) into the Food Rescue Hero platform to help bridge the data gap left by the end of the USDA’s report. The CNI assigns every U.S. census tract a score reflecting the level of food insecurity-related need, drawing on SNAP participation, Type II diabetes rates, disability status, localized median income, and the USDA’s Food Access Research Atlas. Scores appear on donor and nonprofit partner maps and in the Suggested Nonprofits window during rescue creation, so when you’re deciding where food goes, the need is right there on the screen. There are no reports to run, no spreadsheets to build.
The CNI helps food rescue organizations move from believing their work is equitable to knowing it is, and gives them a clear way to show their communities, boards, and funders exactly where their work is going. Hunger doesn’t disappear when we stop measuring it.
If you’d like to see the need in your own service area, schedule a no-pressure demo with our team.
