The Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement (CPS-FSS) is the source of national and State-level statistics on food insecurity used in USDA's annual reports on household food security. The CPS is a monthly labor force survey of about 50,000 households conducted by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Once each year, after answering the labor force questions, the same households are asked a series of questions (the Food Security Supplement) about food security, food expenditures, and use of food and nutrition assistance programs. Food security data have been collected by the CPS-FSS each year since 1995. Four data sets that complement those available from the Census Bureau are available for download on the ERS website. These are available as ASCII uncompressed or zipped files. The purpose and appropriate use of these additional data files are described below: 1) CPS 1995 Revised Food Security Status data--This file provides household food security scores and food security status categories that are consistent with procedures and variable naming conventions introduced in 1996. This includes the "common screen" variables to facilitate comparisons of prevalence rates across years. This file must be matched to the 1995 CPS Food Security Supplement public-use data file. 2) CPS 1998 Children's and 30-day Food Security data--Subsequent to the release of the April 1999 CPS-FSS public-use data file, USDA developed two additional food security scales to describe aspects of food security conditions in interviewed households not captured by the 12-month household food security scale. This file provides three food security variables (categorical, raw score, and scale score) for each of these scales along with household identification variables to allow the user to match this supplementary data file to the CPS-FSS April 1998 data file. 3) CPS 1999 Children's and 30-day Food Security data--Subsequent to the release of the April 1999 CPS-FSS public-use data file, USDA developed two additional food security scales to describe aspects of food security conditions in interviewed households not captured by the 12-month household food security scale. This file provides three food security variables (categorical, raw score, and scale score) for each of these scales along with household identification variables to allow the user to match this supplementary data file to the CPS-FSS April 1999 data file. 4) CPS 2000 30-day Food Security data--Subsequent to the release of the September 2000 CPS-FSS public-use data file, USDA developed a revised 30-day CPS Food Security Scale. This file provides three food security variables (categorical, raw score, and scale score) for the 30-day scale along with household identification variables to allow the user to match this supplementary data file to the CPS-FSS September 2000 data file. Food security is measured at the household level in three categories: food secure, low food security and very low food security. Each category is measured by a total count and as a percent of the total population. Categories and measurements are broken down further based on the following demographic characteristics: household composition, race/ethnicity, metro/nonmetro area of residence, and geographic region. The food security scale includes questions about households and their ability to purchase enough food and balanced meals, questions about adult meals and their size, frequency skipped, weight lost, days gone without eating, questions about children meals, including diversity, balanced meals, size of meals, skipped meals and hunger. Questions are also asked about the use of public assistance and supplemental food assistance. The food security scale is 18 items that measure insecurity. A score of 0-2 means a house is food secure, from 3-7 indicates low food security, and 8-18 means very low food security. The scale and the data also report the frequency with which each item is experienced. Data are available as .dat files which may be processed in statistical software or through the United State Census Bureau's DataFerret http://dataferrett.census.gov/. Data from 2010 onwards is available below and online. Data from 1995-2009 must be accessed through DataFerrett. DataFerrett is a data analysis and extraction tool to customize federal, state, and local data to suit your requirements. Through DataFerrett, the user can develop an unlimited array of customized spreadsheets that are as versatile and complex as your usage demands then turn those spreadsheets into graphs and maps without any additional software. Resources in this dataset:Resource Title: December 2014 Food Security CPS Supplement. File Name: dec14pub.zipResource Title: December 2013 Food Security CPS Supplement. File Name: dec13pub.zipResource Title: December 2012 Food Security CPS Supplement. File Name: dec12pub.zipResource Title: December 2011 Food Security CPS Supplement. File Name: dec11pub.zipResource Title: December 2010 Food Security CPS Supplement. File Name: dec10pub.zip

Data are provided in this collection on labor force activity for the week prior to the survey. Comprehensive data are available on the employment status, occupation, and industry of persons 15 years old and older. Also shown are personal characteristics such as age, sex, race, marital status, veteran status, household relationship, educational background, and Hispanic origin. The Food Security Supplement was conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Food and Consumer Service (FCS) of the United States Department of Agriculture. Supplement questions were asked of all interviewed households, as appropriate. Questions included expenditure for food, whether the household had enough food and had the kinds of food they wanted, and whether the household was running short of money and trying to make their food or food money go further. Additional questions dealt with getting food from food pantries or soup kitchens, cutting the size of or skipping meals, and loosing weight because there was not enough food. The supplement was intended to research the full range of the severity of food insecurity and hunger as experienced in United States households and was used by the supplement sponsor to produce a scaled measure of food insecurity. Responses to individual items in this supplement are not meaningful measures of food insufficiency and should not be used in such a manner.

Data are provided in this collection on labor force activity for the week prior to the survey. Comprehensive data are available on the employment status, occupation, and industry of persons 15 years old and older. Also shown are personal characteristics such as age, sex, race, marital status, veteran status, household relationship, educational background, and Hispanic origin. The Food Security Supplement was conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Food and Consumer Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. Supplement questions were asked of all interviewed households, as appropriate. Questions included expenditure for food, whether the household had enough food and had the kinds of food they wanted, and whether the household was running short of money and trying to make their food or food money go further. Additional questions dealt with getting food from food pantries or soup kitchens, cutting the size of or skipping meals, and losing weight because there wasn't enough food. The supplement was intended to research the full range of the severity of food insecurity and hunger as experienced in United States households and was used by the supplement sponsor to produce a scaled measure of food insecurity. Responses to individual items in this supplement are not meaningful measures of food insufficiency and should not be used in such a manner.

This data collection is comprised of responses from two sets of survey questionnaires, the basic Current Population Survey (CPS) and a survey on the topic of food security in the United States, which was administered as a supplement to the December 2005 CPS questionnaire. The CPS Food Security supplement was sponsored and conducted by the United States Census Bureau for the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).The CPS, administered monthly, is a labor force survey providing current estimates of the economic status and activities of the population of the United States. Specifically, the CPS provides estimates of total employment (both farm and nonfarm), nonfarm self-employed persons, domestics, and unpaid helpers in nonfarm family enterprises, wage and salaried employees, and estimates of total unemployment. Data from the CPS are provided for the week prior to the survey. In December, the week containing the nineteenth day of the month was the interview week. The week containing the twelfth day was the reference week (i.e., the week about which the labor force questions were asked).The supplement was intended to research the full range of severity of food insecurity as experienced in United States households. The food security questions were asked of all interviewed households, as appropriate. Respondents were queried on how much the household spent for food, their use of federal and community food assistance programs, whether they were able to afford enough food, food sufficiency, and ways of coping with not having enough food. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, marital status, veteran status, educational attainment, occupation, and income.

This data collection is comprised of responses from two sets of survey questionnaires, the basic Current Population Survey (CPS) and a survey on the topic of food security in the United States, which was administered as a supplement to the September 2000 CPS questionnaire.The CPS, administered monthly, is a labor force survey providing current estimates of the economic status and activities of the population of the United States. Specifically, the CPS provides estimates of total employment (both farm and nonfarm), nonfarm self-employed persons, domestics, and unpaid helpers in nonfarm family enterprises, wage and salaried employees, and estimates of total unemployment. Data from the CPS are provided for the week prior to the survey.The supplement was intended to research the full range of severity of food insecurity as experienced in United States households. The food security questions were asked of all interviewed households, as appropriate. Respondents were queried on how much the household spent for food, their use of federal and community food assistance programs, whether they were able to afford enough food, food sufficiency, and ways of coping with not having enough food. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, marital status, veteran status, educational attainment, occupation, and income.