How has food bank usage trended in the US from 2020 to 2025?
Executive summary
The reporting provided does not include a national, U.S.-level dataset for 2020–2025, so it is not possible from these sources to definitively map a U.S. nationwide trajectory; however, local U.S. studies and multiple analogous Canadian national and provincial reports show a clear pattern of a large pandemic-era spike in food bank demand followed by persistently elevated use through 2024–2025 and increasing strain on charitable systems [1] [2] [3]. Where U.S. regional data appear in the file, they signal rising, entrenched demand similar to the documented Canadian experience, but any statement about the whole United States would require U.S. national HungerCount-style data not supplied here [1].
1. Pandemic shock then sustained pressure—what comparable reports show
Across the supplied reports, the clearest, repeatedly documented pattern is a sharp increase in visits beginning in 2020 during COVID-19 and then continued high demand into 2024–2025, with some signs that growth rates remain positive even if the pace slowed for some groups; Food Banks Canada found monthly visits near 2.2 million in March 2025—nearly double pre-pandemic levels in March 2019—and local Canadian networks reported record annual and regional highs in 2024–2025 [3] [4] [5].
2. Local U.S. evidence in the packet: rising need, more entrenched insecurity
The U.S.-area reporting included here is regional rather than national but shows trends consistent with the Canadian findings: the Capital Area Food Bank’s Hunger Report documents persistently high food insecurity in its service area in 2025, with 36 percent of households reporting food insecurity—little changed from 2024 and higher than 2023—and describes new coping behaviors such as increased use of “buy now, pay later” to cover food purchases [1]. A Food Bank of Delaware write-up notes researchers’ estimates of the economic value of food pantry assistance and suggests large-scale increases in pantry usage through 2020, but it does not provide a U.S.-national monthly series for 2020–2025 in the supplied excerpt [2].
3. Canada as a robust indicator in this file — analogous but not identical to the U.S.
Most of the documents supplied are Canadian hunger reports and news coverage: provincial reports from Ontario, British Columbia, and national HungerCount material show dramatic increases since 2019—for example, Ontario reporting over one million people served and 8.7 million visits between April 2024 and March 2025, and British Columbia reporting visits up 79 percent since 2019—illustrating how pandemic disruptions, rising rents, and food inflation can drive large increases in demand [4] [6] [5]. These Canadian figures are useful analogues but cannot be substituted for U.S. national data without risk of error.
4. Who’s driving the increases and what that implies for interpretation
The reporting highlights multiple drivers that explain the persistence of higher food bank usage: pandemic-era job disruptions, rising food and housing costs, stagnant wages, and the end of some emergency supports—factors explicitly cited by Canadian advocacy organizations and food bank leaders calling for policy responses [7] [8] [3]. Regional U.S. reporting in the packet echoes those drivers, suggesting that where similar economic and policy conditions exist in U.S. communities, food bank demand is likely to have followed comparable trajectories [1] [2].
5. Caveats, competing interpretations and institutional agendas
Many of the sources are hunger-relief organizations or advocacy groups whose reports are designed to document need and push for policy changes—an explicit agenda that does not invalidate their data but frames their emphasis and recommendations [3] [4]. Conversely, local media stories sometimes emphasise anecdotal strain or worst-case local shortages, which can amplify perceived urgency; without uniform national datasets for the U.S. in the supplied materials, these accounts cannot establish a single consolidated U.S. trend line [9] [10].
6. Bottom line
From the reporting provided, the defensible conclusion is that pandemic-driven spikes in food bank usage in 2020 were followed by sustained, often rising demand through 2024–2025 in many places documented here—particularly across Canadian provinces—and that regional U.S. data in the packet mirror those patterns locally; however, the file does not contain comprehensive U.S.-national time series data for 2020–2025, so a definitive nationwide U.S. trend cannot be asserted without additional U.S. national sources [3] [1] [4].