The Impact of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes on Low-Income Households : A Multi-City Comparison of Nielsen Purchasing Data

Due to increased awareness among policymakers of the role that sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) play in the obesity epidemic, SSB taxes have been enacted in California cities of Albany, Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco as well as in Boulder, Philadelphia, and Seattle. We pooled five years of Nielsen panel and scanner data (2014-18) to examine purchasing behaviors in and around these cities that have instituted SSB taxes, selecting households that were either subject to the tax at some point during the study period or which lived in surrounding areas within the same state. Multivariate analyses of beverage purchases found that (1) there is a dose/response relationship with the size of the SSB tax; (2) the Philadelphia tax, which is the only one which includes low-calorie beverages, is associated with greater reductions in SSB purchases and an increase in bottled water purchase; and (3) about 72% of the tax is passed through to consumers, but this does not vary by income level of the household. Few income-related effects were detected, although lower-income households purchased more SSBs at baseline. Overall, our findings suggest that the Philadelphia model may be the most effective overall at encouraging healthy habits in beverage choice