USDA Puts Researchers on Leave After Canceling Hunger Report

By Ryan Hanrahan

The Wall Street Journal’s Dan Frosch and Patrick Thomas reported that “the team of federal economists and researchers responsible for producing the government survey that measures hunger in America were put on indefinite paid leave Monday, according to the union that represents the workers.”

“The move comes two days after The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration abruptly canceled the report, which has been produced by the Agriculture Department every year since the mid-1990s,” Frosch and Thomas reported. “Around a dozen employees, all involved with economic research at the USDA, were put on leave, said Laura Dodson, vice president of the union that represents some of the workers.”

“Not all of the workers placed on leave were directly involved in the hunger report, but they were all present at meetings last week during which they learned that the hunger survey was being canceled, Dodson said,” according to Frosch and Thomas’s reporting. “According to a letter from a USDA human resources official obtained by the Journal, the leave ‘is not a disciplinary action.’ It bars the employees from conducting any government business until further notice.”

“Dodson, a chapter vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the workers were told by managers that they were being placed on leave while ‘an unauthorized disclosure’ was being investigated,” Frosch and Thomas reported. “Staff were ordered to turn in their laptop computers, she said.”

Agri-Pulse’s Steve Davies reported that “those affected include Acting Administrator Kelly Maguire, her chief of staff, the food economics division head, several other division workers, and AFGE bargaining unit employees. Maguire is a career federal employee who has been with ERS for seven and a half years, according to her LinkedIn profile. Former ERS Administrator Spiro Stefanou recently left the agency.”

USDA, Anti-Hunger Advocates Disagree on Importance of the Report

Reuters reported earlier this week that “the Trump administration has canceled the USDA’s annual food insecurity survey, ending a decades-long effort to track how many Americans struggle to access enough food, the Agriculture Department said on Saturday.”

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the Household Food Security Report had become ‘overly politicized’ and was no longer necessary, though the 2024 edition will still be released in October; the 2025 survey will not be conducted, the USDA said in a statement,” Reuters reported. “The USDA said it will continue to have access to more ‘timely and accurate data’ and claimed the annual report was ‘rife with inaccuracies, wrong metrics, zero accountability and a massive drive for bigger and larger government programs.’”

But, Reuters’ Leah Douglas reported that “the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s decision to end its annual food insecurity survey will make it harder to measure the impact of the Trump administration’s cuts to nutrition programs such as food stamps, anti-hunger advocates said on Monday.”

“The report, which gathers data through the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey and has been published since 1998, is the only data set with state as well as national statistics, and is crucial to assessing the efficacy of government programs, according to food security experts,” Douglas reported. “‘To say it’s duplicative is a little misleading because this is the most comprehensive source we have,’ said Megan Lott, deputy director for the Healthy Eating Research program at Duke University.”

“The lack of data will also make it harder to ensure the efficacy of existing federal programs, including the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, said Georgia Machell, president and CEO of the National WIC Association,” Douglas reported.

USDA Puts Researchers on Leave After Canceling Hunger Report was originally published by Farmdoc.