Food Insecurity amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: Food Charity, Government Assistance, and Employment

Fei Men and Valerie Tarasuk

Canadian Public Policy, 2021, vol. 47, issue 2, 202-230

Abstract: To mitigate the effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the federal government has implemented several financial assistance programs, including unprecedented funding to food charities. Using the Canadian Perspectives Survey Series 2, we examine the demographic, employment, and behavioural characteristics associated with food insecurity in April–May 2020. We find that one-quarter of job-insecure individuals experienced food insecurity that was strongly associated with pandemic-related disruptions to employment income, major financial hardship, and use of food charity, yet the vast majority of food-insecure households did not report receiving any charitable food assistance. Increased financial support for low-income households would reduce food insecurity and mitigate negative repercussions of the pandemic.

Keywords: CERB; coronavirus; Employment Insurance; food bank; social distancing; work from home (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cpp.2021-001 (text/html)
access restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpp:issued:v:47:y:2021:i:2:p:202-230

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.utpjournals.com/loi/cpp/

Access Statistics for this article

Canadian Public Policy is currently edited by Prof. Mike Veall

More articles in Canadian Public Policy from University of Toronto Press University of Toronto Press Journals Division 5201 Dufferin Street Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3H 5T8.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Iver Chong ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).