The head of GoFundMe, Tim Cadogan, told Yahoo! Finance the economy is so challenged that more Americans are raising money to buy food—an arresting data point that captures the widening gap between household budgets and basic needs.

In a recent interview on the Opening Bid Unfiltered podcast with Brian Sozzi, he described a notable rise in campaigns for essentials like groceries, a shift from one-off emergencies toward everyday survival.

“Basic things you need to get through life [have] gone up significantly in the last three years in practically all our markets,” Cadogan said.

That evolution underscores the new economic reality for many Americans: persistent inflation, higher borrowing costs, and thin financial cushions are forcing many households to triage bills, juggle debt, and seek help in new ways.

Groceries as the new emergency

Cadogan’s observation—that more people are asking strangers to help pay for staples—marks a sobering turn for a platform historically associated with medical bills, disaster relief, and community projects. When the cost of food stretches paychecks past the breaking point, crowdfunding morphs from altruism to a parallel safety net.

In previous Fortune coverage of inflation’s long tail, consumers’ coping tactics have included trading down brands, shrinking baskets, delaying car repairs, and leaning on credit cards. The shift Cadogan describes suggests those tactics have run out of runway for a growing slice of the country, especially younger and lower-income households who rent, commute, and carry variable-rate debt.

The inflation aftershock

Even as headline inflation cools from its peak, elevated price levels remain embedded in household budgets. Fortune has tracked how cumulative inflation, not just the monthly prints, weighs on families. For instance, groceries cost more than they did two or three years ago, rents have reset higher, and child care is straining paychecks.

Wage gains helped many workers, but unevenly and often after costs had already jumped. For families without savings buffers, a higher cost baseline is the real story. That backdrop explains why an uptick in grocery campaigns on GoFundMe isn’t a curiosity—it’s a barometer of the current economy.

The credit crunch at the kitchen table

Household balance sheets have been whipsawed by stubbornly high prices on necessities as well as steeper borrowing costs on credit cards and auto loans. Fortune’s reporting has highlighted rising delinquency rates among younger borrowers and the squeeze from student loan repayments resuming after a long pause. For some, the social capital of friends, community groups, and online donors now substitutes for financial capital. Crowdfunding groceries is a last-mile solution in a system where wages, benefits, and public supports haven’t fully bridged the gap.

The Great Wealth Transfer meets a giving plateau

Cadogan also frames this moment as an opportunity: the U.S. is entering a historic wealth transfer as baby boomers pass tens of trillions to heirs and philanthropy. Yet overall charitable giving as a share of GDP has struggled to break out sustainably above roughly 2%. A central challenge is converting private balance-sheet strength into public generosity at scale. Fortune has explored the paradox of robust asset markets—fueled by equities, real estate, and private investments—coexisting with widespread financial insecurity. The wealth transfer could amplify that divergence or narrow it, depending on whether inheritors and living donors commit to more dynamic, needs-based giving.

Gen Z, millennials, and a new donor thesis

The GoFundMe CEO hopes younger donors, who are often more values-driven, digitally native, and community-oriented, will push giving higher and faster.

These cohorts already power mutual aid networks and micro-giving online; the question is whether that instinct can scale beyond one-off campaigns to sustained support for food security, housing stability, and local services.

If employer matching, donor-advised vehicles, and purpose-built funds become easier to use—and if transparency and immediacy remain high—small-dollar giving could compound into a measurable macro effect.

What comes next

Many Americans remain one shock away from going into arrears. More GoFundMe campaigns for groceries fits that narrative and raises a challenge to wealth holders on the cusp of inheritance decisions.

If the wealth transfer is the economic story of the decade, the generosity transfer might be its moral counterpart. Whether giving can rise meaningfully above its long-running share of the economy will hinge on channeling today’s empathy into tomorrow’s infrastructure, so that no one needs to pass the hat to put food on the table.

For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.