Feeding America's estimates of the number of individuals who received charitable food assistance (CFA) has been informed by two primary sources of information:
The WBNS asks respondents whether they have received charitable food assistance in the past 30 days and past 12 months, using two survey questions that were developed and tested by Feeding America to improve the consistency, accuracy, and reliability of data about charitable food assistance participation in the United States.
Because the WBNS is representative of households with a working-age adult 18-64, results from the WBNS are supplemented with insights from the CPS to account for households led by seniors age 65+. As of 2022, the CPS also utilizes Feeding America's Charitable Food Assistance Participation Module.
