The Trump administration accuses that hunger data in the US are biased and announces that they will not publish them
People waiting to receive a free table at a social canteen in New York, Photo: John Moore / Getty Images / Profimedia
The Trump administration will end the annual report of the federal government in American, saying that it had become “excessively politicizing” and “full of inaccuracies”, among others, The Associated Press reports.
The decision comes at two and a half months after President Donald Trump signed a law that drastically reduced food aid for poor people. The Budget Office of the Congress estimated that the draft law on tax and expense discounts, the “great and beautiful law” that the Republicans have passed through Congress in July, means that 3 million people would no longer qualify for meal vouchers, known in the US and as SNAP benefits.
Unlike Romania and other European countries, in the US “food stamps”) are not granted by the employer as compensation for employees, but by the federal government without income or with low incomes.
The decision to renounce the report of the USA Department of Agriculture (USDA) on the food security of the households was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
How many people were in a food insecurity situation in the US
In a press release published last day, USDA said that the 2024 report, which was to be published on October 22, will be the last.
“The questions used to collect data are completely subjective and do not provide an exact image of real food security,” said USDA. “The data are full of inaccuracies, inclined to create a narrative that does not reflect what is actually happening in the country, as we are currently experiencing lower rates of poverty, wage increases and job development under the Trump administration,” the source continued.
The Washington Census Office reported earlier this month that the US poverty rate fell from 11% to 2023 to 10.6% last year, before Donald Trump took over his second presidential term.
However, the USDA annual report of 2024 highlighted an “alarming crisis of hunger”, noting that 47.4 million people lived in the previous year in households facing food insecurity, an increase of 3.2 million compared to 2022 and 13.5 million compared to 2021.
“This explosion was, most likely, largely determined by inflation and withdrawing essential support measures implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic, which provided temporary increases in the benefits of the additional nutrition assistance program (SNAP), allowed schools to offer free meals to all students and have extended the fiscal credit. proved to be further developing them, so that all households can prosper ”, note the report.
Overall, the report showed that about one in seven households (13.5%) in America faced hunger in 2023.
A measure from the “manual of several undemocratic states”?
Critics immediately accused the administration of deliberately making hunger measurement more difficult and evaluating the impact of table vouchers.
“Trump cancels an annual government survey that measures hunger in America, instead of allowing him to show an increase in hunger during his mandate,” Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at Center for American Progress, a left -wing tank.
“This follows the manual of many undemocratic states, which cancel or manipulate reports that would show less favorable news,” he said.
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