Sponsors (2)
The bill improves how food insecurity is measured and supports better-targeted nutrition policy through annual standardized CPS data and interagency reporting, but it increases fiscal costs and raises risks from respondent burden and potential privacy exposures unless safeguards and funding limits are addressed.
Low-income households and families will be more accurately identified as experiencing food insecurity because the CPS will collect standardized annual food-security data (2026–2028), improving monitoring and targeting of assistance.
State governments, schools/universities, policymakers, and researchers will receive timelier, comparable data via coordinated interagency reporting and public posting, enabling better evaluation and design of nutrition assistance programs.
Scientists, researchers, and federal research capacity (USDA and Census Bureau) will be strengthened through interagency coordination and authorized funding to conduct and analyze the food-security surveys.
Low-income individuals and families may face increased respondent burden from expanded CPS questions about sensitive household experiences, which could lower response rates and reduce data quality.
Low-income households and children could face privacy risks if detailed food-security findings are published without strong, explicit data-protection safeguards, risking disclosure of sensitive information.
Taxpayers may bear additional federal costs because the bill authorizes unspecified “such sums as necessary” to fund annual surveys and reporting, creating fiscal exposure without a clear funding limit.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates a USDA–Census interagency program to collect, analyze, and publish annual food insecurity data and mandates a CPS food security supplement for 2026–2028.
Official title: Require the Secretary of Agriculture, in coordination with the Director of the Bureau of the Census, to establish an interagency food security measurement program, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 24, 2026 by Lisa Blunt Rochester · Last progress June 24, 2026
Creates a coordinated federal program to measure food insecurity and hunger by directing USDA, working with the Census Bureau, to collect, analyze, and publish annual data. It mandates a Current Population Survey food security supplement using the 2023 questionnaire for 2026–2028, allows continued similar questions after 2029 following testing, public input, and OMB clearance, requires annual reporting to Congress and public posting, and authorizes whatever funding is necessary to run the program.