Employment impact of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes

L.M. Powell, R. Wada, Joseph Persky () and F.J. Chaloupka

American Journal of Public Health, 2014, vol. 104, issue 4, 672-677

Abstract: Objectives. We assessed the impact of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes on net employment. Methods. We used a macroeconomic simulation model to assess the employment impact of a 20% SSB tax accounting for changes in SSB demand, substitution to non-SSBs, income effects, and government expenditures of tax revenues for Illinois and California in 2012. Results. We found increased employment of 4406 jobs in Illinois and 6654 jobs in California, representing a respective 0.06% and 0.03% change in employment. Declines in employment within the beverage industry occurred but were offset by new employment in nonbeverage industry and government sectors. Conclusions. SSB taxes do not have a negative impact on state-level employment, and industry claims of regional job losses are overstated and may mislead lawmakers and constituents.

Keywords: article; carbonated beverage; economics; employment; food industry; human; manpower; statistical model; statistics; tax; United States, California; Carbonated Beverages; Employment; Food Industry; Humans; Illinois; Models, Economic; Taxes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301630

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2013.301630_9

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2013.301630

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Alfredo Morabia

More articles in American Journal of Public Health from American Public Health Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().