The Trump administration eliminated at least nine federal datasets in 2025, according to a watchdog group of researchers monitoring the issue.
Several more have been subject to delays, removals and alterations due to mass firings by the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and extensive furloughs during the latest government shutdown, according to a memo posted by the Federation of American Scientists.
In what ProPublica called a 'war on measurement,' many of the data collections track issues that are consequential for Floridians: climate science, farm labor, food security, maternal mortality, gender equity and drug use.
See a list of terminated federal data: essentialdata.us/in-memoriam.html
Researchers like Elaine Waxman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, said the issue goes beyond data science.
"The loss of trust in data is so concerning because, ultimately, it affects everybody. It's not a researcher issue, right?" she said. "It's really about who can understand what government is doing and what choices are being made…taking away data is also eroding democratic participation."
See a list of data at risk: dataindex.us/collections
In department press releases, the Trump administration has justified scrubbing datasets that are "redundant," "costly," and "politicized."
While the majority of federal datasets are still intact, the changing landscape is creating uncertainty for researchers, as well as advocacy groups, nonprofits and social service providers.
Florida could lose visibility on climate change, food security and other issues
In December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released what could be its last annual hunger survey after the Trump administration announced it would discontinue the survey.
Read more: USDA released its annual food security report. It could be the last one
Aaron Neal, the director of data analysis at United Way Suncoast, said it's hard to overstate the consequences of a void of federal food security data.
"Food insecurity is not just a measure of need. When combined with information over time, it helps us to see where things have worked, the impact of policy decisions, and where we as a society need to go to maximize efficiency to solve hunger," he said in a written statement.
In Florida, where 2 in 5 households struggle to afford basic needs, according to United Way's ALICE Household Survival Budget, Neal said losing visibility on food security figures is detrimental.
"Each of these expenses are fighting for space in our wallets and now food insecurity will not be included. Not because we're doing well, but because the measurement has disappeared even though the problems still exist," he said.
Waxman, who specializes in food security research, said that deleting data is a dangerous precedent.
"If you don't measure something, particularly in our modern world, it's easy to say it doesn't exist. And if you're not monitoring food insecurity, that's diminishing the idea that there are people in this country who struggle to put food on the table," she said. "People do have those struggles, but we're slowly disappearing our ability to document it."
Echoing the alarm are climate and energy researchers who are pushing back on the Trump administration's move to end the "costly Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program," under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a globally renowned climate modeling facility.
"The Trump Administration is hiding the facts and hoping that the issues will be ignored — out of sight, out of mind. But, simply dismantling the data does NOT make the issues go away. We are just made uninformed making these challenges harder to address," said Susan Glickman with The CLEO Institute, a Miami-based climate action nonprofit.
There is at least one bill before federal lawmakers, the Food Assurance and Security Act, which would repeal the termination of the USDA's annual hunger survey. Other data collections jeopardized by proposed rule changes have time-limited periods of public comment.
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