A new report from the USDA Economic Research Service finds that 86.3% of U.S. households were food secure in 2024, while 13.7%—about 18.3 million households—experienced food insecurity at some point during the year.
The prevalence of food insecurity was statistically unchanged from 2023 and 2022. Very low food security affected 5.4% of households in 2024, similar to recent years.
Among households with children, 9.1% experienced food insecurity, with 0.9% reporting very low food security among both children and adults. In these cases, children were sometimes hungry or skipped meals due to insufficient funds.
The findings are based on a nationally representative survey of more than 32,000 households.
