Trump’s USDA Is Hiding the Data on Food Stamp Cuts

On December 1, under President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—which more than 40 million Americans rely on—introduced new work requirements for people verging on retirement age.

Millions of adults ages of 55 to 64 may now be locked out of the program if they’re not able to work—and in a one-two punch of attacks on federal services, the USDA has terminated its annual Food Insecurity Survey, making it impossible to know just how devastating an impact Trump’s backdoor SNAP cuts will have on aging adults who are unable to get exemptions from their state.

In normal conditions, said Tufts University food economist Parke Wilde. policymakers and government workers would ask, “‘What are the consequences of policy changes this fall so that we can calibrate and improve the program in the future?’ We won’t be able to do that this year.”

Targeted actions to eliminate federal government data have accompanied countless other Trump administration cuts and defundings: An executive order by Trump curtailed the collection of gender and sexuality information in federal surveys, and the Institute of Education Sciences, which disseminates education data, faced mass layoffs last year.

What existing data tells us is that tacking on new SNAP work requirements leads people to lose their benefits. Research from George Washington University found that between 2013 and 2017, changes to SNAP work requirement waivers led to around one-third of adults without dependents losing SNAP benefits. “There is scant evidence that work requirements are effective in helping people gain employment or become more self-sufficient, and there is strong evidence that work requirements create hardships,” the researchers concluded.

Colleen Helfin, a Syracuse University professor of public administration and international affairs, said that around half of early retirements between the ages of 55 and 65 are the result of health issues or difficulties maintaining employment, often compounded by challenging state processes to seek exemption from

“It’s really important for states to be thinking about the administrative burden,” Helfin said. “All these things become a little bit harder as people become older, and they may have declines in hearing, sight or cognitive function.”

Some states try to reduce hurdles, rather than add them, explained Lauren Schuyler, a specialist in family welfare at the University of Maryland School of Social Work.

“Having your practitioner provide documentation or proving that you have disabilities is just an added layer of that administrative burden,” Schuyler said, which is especially likely to strip SNAP from people in their fifties and through mid-sixties. With the USDA’s decision to quit tracking food insecurity, the impact will remain unclear and far more challenging to address.

Helfin is wary of smaller organizations trying to fill the data gap left by USDA—but some states are seeing an effort to do so.

“There’s a movement for state legislators to pass bills to mandate the state measurement of food insecurity, perhaps putting it on something like the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey,” Helfin said.

In response to a request for comment, a USDA spokesperson characterized the Food Insecurity Survey as “subjective, liberal fodder” designed “as a means to support the increase of SNAP eligibility and benefit allotments.”