Social conditions: Food banks
Why have food bank visits doubled since 2019?
Food banks recorded 2,165,766 visits in March 2025, almost twice as many as in March 2019. One in five clients now has a job. Food banks are a visible signal of need, but they reach only part of the 9.8 million people in food-insecure households.
- Visits in March 2025
- 2,165,766
- About 711,770 by children
- Change since 2019
- +99%
- Roughly doubled
- Clients with a job
- 19.4%
- Up from 12.1% in 2019
- Clients renting at market rates
- 70.4%
- Housing costs come first
A rise that hasn’t stopped
Food bank visits in March
Total visits to food banks in the month of March. * Derived from published percentage changes. Years without a verified national total are not shown.
Pressure differs by province
Food bank use by province, 2025
Visits per 1,000 residents, March 2025. Visits count each visit, not unique people; per-resident rates use 2024 population.
Who uses food banks
Client profile, March 2025
% of clients. Categories overlap.
Main source of income, March 2025
% of clients by their main income source.
Concepts
Exercises
Which province had the fastest growth in food bank visits between 2024 and 2025, and which had a decline?
Check your reasoning
Alberta grew fastest among provinces (+21.8%); British Columbia (−1.0%) and Prince Edward Island (−1.6%) declined. The territories combined grew 22.9%.
About 9.8 million people lived in food-insecure households, and food banks recorded about 2.2 million visits in one month. Why can’t you divide one by the other to get the share of food-insecure people who use food banks?
Check your reasoning
Visits are not people: some visit several times a month, others once a year. The two sources also cover different periods and populations. Estimating the share requires asking food-insecure households directly whether they used a food bank.
The share of food bank clients with a job rose from 12.1% in 2019 to 19.4% in 2025. Give two economic explanations.
Check your reasoning
Rents and food prices rose faster than wages for low-paid workers, so employment no longer guarantees enough income; and part-time or precarious work leaves many workers with low annual earnings and no access to benefits.
Should governments fund food banks or raise social assistance rates? Write a short argument for each, using the income-source chart and the Food insecurity module.
Check your reasoning
Funding food banks gives fast, visible help and uses volunteer capacity, but treats symptoms and depends on donations. Raising benefits addresses the cause (low income), lets people choose what they need, and reaches food-insecure people who never use food banks, but costs more and is politically harder.