Current Population Survey (CPS) Supplements: Food Security

The CPS Food Security Supplement is an annual supplement to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, sponsored by the USDA's Economic Research Service in collaboration with the Census Bureau, conducted every December since 2001 (with earlier one-off collections in April 1995, September 1996, April 1997, August 1998, April 1999, and September 2000). It measures household food security status using the 18-item U.S. Food Security Scale, covering food expenditures, use of food assistance programs, and coping strategies such as skipping meals or relying on food banks.

All files follow the naming convention cpsmmmYYYY where YYYY is the year and mmm is the 3-letter month abbreviation. Here we offer the original files and documentation as well as Stata, SAS, and SPSS programs to read the raw files.

Note: USDA discontinued the Food Security supplement after the December 2024 collection.

• Documentation
• Raw files
• Stata, SAS, and SPSS programs for reading raw files

Note for all CPS supplements (may or may not apply to this specific supplement): For 2000-Census based weights, 2002 NAICS-based industry codes, 2000 SOC-based occupation codes, and revised class of worker and union variables for 2000-2002 the CPS files, please visit CPS Extracts. Several major changes affected the 2003 CPS. For more information about the changes, please visit CPS Extracts.

Contact data@nber.org with questions, comments, or suggestions.