Charitable food use increased nearly 50 percent from 2019 to 2020 : findings from the December 2020 Well-Being and Basic Needs Survey Waxman, Elaine, author. Gupta, Poonam, author. Gonzalez, Dulce, author. Charities -- statistics & numerical data Persons with Disabilities -- statistics & numerical data Emigrants and Immigrants -- statistics & numerical data Food Insecurity -- economics Minority Groups -- statistics & numerical data Long lines at food banks have been among the most visible signs1 of the economic disruption and material hardship experienced across the US during the COVID-19 pandemic recession. We analyzed data from the December 2020 round of the Urban Institute’s Well-Being and Basic Needs Survey (WBNS), a nationally representative survey of more than 7,500 adults ages 18 to 64, and compared those data to results from the December 2019 round to examine the change in charitable food use over the past year. For this analysis, charitable food use includes the use of free groceries or free meals. We also examined the characteristics and circumstances of people who sought charitable food during 2020, and we asked people who reported they had not used charitable food if they were aware of a place to find these resources in their community and how comfortable they would be seeking this assistance. Washington, DC : Urban Institute, March 2021 Urban Institute, issuing body. Technical Report Text Illustrations 1 online resource (1 PDF file (11 pages)) nlm:nlmuid-9918316884506676-pdf 9918316884506676 http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918316884506676 English United States Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-DC license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0