Hunger Statistics for Canada

An estimated 5.5 million people are at risk of hunger every day, most of them children and the elderly.

Who is Hungry in Canada?

Working Poor
People with jobs constitute the second largest group of food bank clients, at 14.5% - up from 13.5% in 2007. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of food bank clients with jobs are employed at low wages. The expansion of the low-wage economy has generated more working poor who, even with full-time jobs, are unable to meet basic needs for themselves and their families.

Children
Children continue to be over-represented among food bank recipients in Canada. This year, 37.1% of food bank clients were under 18. Child poverty is now at the same level seen in 1989, the year when the federal government made an all-party resolution to end child poverty. Child poverty is directly tied to the level of household income. Among households accessing food banks, families with children make up more than 50% of recipients.

Seniors
Seniors accessing food banks across Canada is a sad reality. HungerCount 2008 reports that seniors accounted for 5.7% of food bank clients in a typical month of 2008.

Single Parent Families
The single parent family is still one of Canada's most economically vulnerable groups. It is likely that many of the single parent households assisted by food banks (27.3% of the total), as reported in HungerCount 2008, are women: according to Statistics Canada, 1 in 4 single-parent families are headed by women.

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