From KETV.com: “Food insecurity isn’t just a number on a page,” said Eric Savaiano, the program manager for food and nutrition access with Nebraska Appleseed. “It is evidence of people not having the food that they need in communities”…
Savaiano said between 2021 and 2023, the food insecure population in the state increased by about 90,000. He says that could grow even more after the cuts to SNAP from the One Big Beautiful Bill.
“They started a fire,” Savaiano said. “And what they’re doing is removing the batteries from the smoke detector so that we can’t know where that’s happening.”
You can find the entire story here: https://www.ketv.com/article/nebraska-advocates-concerned-end-survey-food-insecurity/68047250
The Big Beautiful Bill continues to work it’s magic across the country. Red or Blue, rural or urban, young or less young there are people struggling everywhere.
Annual food insecurity data, particularly the Household Food Security Reports produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) until their recent termination, has been a critical tool for government agencies in several key ways:
Informing and Evaluating Federal Nutrition Programs: The data was essential for the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) to assess the effectiveness and reach of major programs designed to combat food insecurity, such as:
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (formerly food stamps).
School Meal Programs (National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program).
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). The statistics were used to track whether food insecurity was rising or falling and to understand which populations and geographic areas were most affected, which in turn helped inform decisions about program structure, eligibility, and funding.
Policy and Funding Decisions: Policymakers at federal, state, and local levels relied on the official statistics to:
Justify the need for anti-hunger initiatives and determine the appropriate scale of funding.
Set policy goals related to reducing food insecurity.
Measure the impact of economic changes (like recessions or inflation) and legislative actions (like cuts or expansions to safety net programs) on household food access.
Resource Allocation: The data, often broken down by household characteristics and geography, helped government agencies and their partners (like state-level agencies and food banks) prioritize the allocation of resources to areas with the highest rates of food insecurity.
Public Awareness and Research: Although not directly a function of an operating agency, the official data was used by government researchers and external academics to study the factors contributing to food insecurity and to develop evidence-based interventions.
The USDA recently announced the end of the annual Household Food Security Reports, which served as the official national data source for food insecurity statistics. The USDA claims the survey was redundant and subjective, while experts and advocates argue it eliminates a crucial metric for tracking and responding to hunger in our nation.
This data loss will impact millions of people for years to come. The impacts on health, security and education are going to take a generation to recover from.
We are all going to pay for the non existent savings generated by Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. The total increase in the national debt from the OBBBA is estimated to be over $4.1 trillion over the next decade. The saddest part of all this? The OBBBA adds to the deficit because the large-scale tax cuts (which disproportionately favor the wealthy), (reducing revenue) are much greater than the spending cuts (reducing outlays for safety net programs) it calls for.
What do you think?
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