Nearly one in five Canadians using food banks have jobs, as visits passed two-million in a month for the first time

This year, more than two million Canadians visited food banks in just one month, double the visits from a decade ago, as food and shelter inflation has made millions more in the country food insecure.

In March of this year, there were 2,059,686 million food bank visits across Canada, according to Food Banks Canada’s 2024 annual HungerCount report, released late last month.

The charity, which is affiliated with 770 food banks across the country, recorded its highest-ever number of visits. It’s a 6 percent increase from last year and a 90 percent increase from five years ago.

Canadians whose primary source of income is employment made up a record share of Canadian food bank clients this year, at nearly one-fifth. Thirty percent of food banks even reported having run out of food before client demand was met.

“This unthinkable rate of growth is not something food banks, nor people in Canada, can sustain,” Food Banks Canada CEO Kirstin Beardsley said in a press release.

In March 2018, for the first time in 25 years, Canada surpassed one million food bank visits in one month, according to the report. Just six years later visits surpassed two million.

Food Banks Canada collects national food bank data in March each year. The month is chosen as a typical month for food bank visits, according to the report’s methodology.

The “one-two punch” of food and housing inflation is the primary cause of Canadians' record food bank usage, acknowledged the report. As a result, the portion of employed people requiring food banks was the largest ever recorded.

Since February 2020, food prices across Canada have risen 23 percent. Meanwhile, rent has risen 20 percent.

Between 2019 and 2024, Canadian food bank clients whose main source of income was employment rose from 12 to 18 percent. Since 2019, employed Canadians moved from the third- to the second-largest group of Canadian food bank visitors, behind those reliant on government assistance and then those depending on disability-related income support.

In 2019, those dependent on government assistance comprised the largest share of food bank clients at 40.1 percent followed by those depending on disability-related assistance, 17.3 percent. In 2024, those shares remarkably declined to 27.7 and 12.2 percent.

Prince Edward Island had the highest share of food bank clients who were employed, at 37 percent. Alberta had the next highest share of employed food bank clients at 25 percent.

The smallest portion of employed food bank clients was in Newfoundland and Labrador, where food bank visitors with jobs comprised only 8 percent. Ontario had the second lowest share of employed food bank visitors at 13 percent.

Statistics Canada defines food insecurity as “a condition of not having access to sufficient food, or food of an adequate quality, to meet one’s basic needs.”

Between 2018 and 2022, food insecurity across the Canadian population rose 42 percent. Among elderly couples (where the primary earner is 65 years or older) food insecurity increased the most, by 86 percent. Among families with children (where the primary earner is below 65 with kids) it rose the second most, by 43 percent. Families with children have historically led the pure number of food insecure Canadians.