Sugar-sweetened beverages are a known contributor to numerous effectively being points, collectively with dejected diet quality, weight develop and diabetes. While numerous reviews delight in proven that taxing sweetened beverages vastly reduces shopping, questions delight in been raised about whether or no longer the taxes dwelling a larger financial burden on lower-profits households.
New study from the College of Washington, printed June 2 in Meals Coverage, addressed the subject by examining the industrial fairness impacts of sweetened beverage taxes in three cities: Seattle, San Francisco and Philadelphia.
“Sugar-sweetened beverages are the fresh tobacco,” mentioned James Krieger, senior writer and medical professor of effectively being systems and inhabitants effectively being in the UW College of Public Health. “Public effectively being researchers and others delight in been working for some time to cut support gross sales of these beverages. Taxes labored effectively to cut support tobacco purchases, and they’ve been applied and appear to work equally effectively in sugary drinks.”
The witness confirmed the tax paid by households accounted for a increased share of profits for lower-profits households, however unruffled entirely 0.01% to 0.05%. The annual per capita dollar quantity that households paid in direction of the tax, between $5.50 and $31, didn’t differ by profits level.
The researchers also chanced on that sweetened beverage taxes redistributed dollars from increased- to lower-profits households. Extra dollars went in direction of funding programs that earnings lower-profits communities than those households paid in taxes. The annual salvage earnings to lower-profits communities ranged from $5.3 to $19.1 million per yr across the three U.S. cities.
“Cities delight in prioritized funding programs that earnings lower-profits populations, which makes sweetened beverage tax policies extra economically equitable,” Krieger mentioned.
As an example, earnings raised by Seattle’s sweetened beverage tax has been old to fund programs and products and companies that amplify catch entry to to healthy meals and enhance child effectively being and studying in early childhood. In 2020, sweetened beverage tax earnings used to be also old to manufacture enhance to communities disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The researchers studied the amount of beverage purchases made in stores by 1,141 households in the three U.S. cities to estimate taxes paid by households throughout the first yr after tax implementation. They then old metropolis inhabitants info to calculate the per capita quantity of sweetened beverage tax paid by profits level.
The authors also reviewed public documents and contacted metropolis representatives to catch the dollar quantity of annual