31% of Canadians with disabilities face food insecurity

Nearly one in three Canadians with disabilities lived in a household that struggled to get enough food in 2022, and almost two in three said they were lonely, according to a Statistics Canada study released Oct. 14.

The agency said 31 per cent of people with disabilities lived in homes with moderate or severe food insecurity. That breaks down to 19 per cent moderate and 12 per cent severe. The figures come from the 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability.

Food insecurity was heaviest among younger adults. Statistics Canada said 41 per cent of those aged 25 to 44 were food insecure, about twice the 20 per cent rate among those aged 65 to 84.

The study also measured how often people were stuck at home because of their condition. About 12 per cent said they were often or always housebound. Of those, 60 per cent pointed to a condition that fluctuates, 59 per cent to a condition that worsens outside the home and 52 per cent to mobility restrictions, according to the agency.

Loneliness, which Statistics Canada defined as lacking companionship, feeling left out or feeling isolated, rose with the severity of disability. It was reported by 55 per cent of people with mild disabilities, 63 per cent with moderate disabilities, 71 per cent with severe disabilities and 78 per cent with very severe disabilities.

The overlap between hardship and isolation was stark. Among people with disabilities who were food insecure, 79 per cent reported loneliness, compared with 57 per cent of those who were food secure. For those who were housebound, the loneliness rate was 88 per cent, against 61 per cent for those who were not.

The numbers land on a large group. Statistics Canada reported in a December 2023 release from the same survey that 27 per cent of Canadians aged 15 and older, or 8.0 million people, had a disability that limited their daily activities. That was up from 22 per cent in 2017.

The same 2023 release put the median after-tax income at $32,870 for people with disabilities, compared with $39,490 for those without. For people with more severe disabilities it was $28,110. Among those aged 25 to 64, 62 per cent with disabilities were employed, against 78 per cent without.

Those income gaps help frame the food figures, although the new study does not draw that link itself. It describes the outcomes but does not test what causes them.

The data also predate the Canada Disability Benefit, which began paying in 2025. As we reported on Oct. 14, the maximum is $204.20 a month for July 2026 to June 2027, or about $2,450 a year, and a single person gets the full amount only at an adjusted family net income of $23,000 or less after the working income exemption. The 2022 survey cannot show whether that payment has changed anything for the 31 per cent in food-insecure homes.

The release leaves other questions open. It does not compare these outcomes with people without disabilities, and it does not give food insecurity or housebound rates by severity. It also names core housing need as a fourth quality-of-life indicator but does not report a figure for it. No federal or provincial response to the findings was found in the release or in other coverage reviewed for this report.

All figures here come from Statistics Canada’s own survey, and no independent analysis of the new study was found at the time of writing.

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Via Statistics Canada, Understanding quality of life among persons with disabilities in Canada: material and social well-being, The Daily, Oct. 14, 2026.