Philadelphia’s Drinking Less Soda: What About Kenney’s Tax?

In a trend favoring healthiness, Philadelphians – and Americans in general – are drinking less soda. A survey by the Public Health Management Corporation determined that, between the years of 2007 and 2013, the amount of people who drank soda every day shrank by 16 percent. It’s a decline fueled, undoubtedly, by increased public attention to the health effects of a bad diet, including obesity and diabetes. What does this mean, however, for Mayor Jim Kenney’s proposed 3-cents-per-ounce “soda tax” on sugary drinks?

With soda consumption down, what will become of the mayor’s proposed tax on sugary drinks?

To talk to Kenney about it, it’s no big deal. He claims that the newest numbers regarding soda consumption were factored in when the soda tax proposal was being written, and that lower consumption means fewer jobs lost for delivery drivers and less impact on small businesses who sell soda if the tax is implemented. He claims that “[s]mall grocers, bodegas and convenience stores are already stocking and selling non-sugary beverages,” due to the fact that “customers’ preferences are already changing, even without a tax.”

Of note is the fact that, in contrast with Philadelphia’s last two (failed) attempts to introduce a soda tax, Kenney is not taking the matter from a public health standpoint. Rather, he is unabashedly trying to raise money for some much-needed areas of the city’s anemic budget, including a universal pre-kindergarten initiative, community schools, and an overhaul of city parks, recreation centers, and libraries.

Realistically, no matter how optimistically lawmakers are about citizen adaptation to the soda tax, it remains all but guaranteed that there will be an initial, sharp dropoff in soda sales once the tax goes into effect. The same thing happened when Philadelphia levied a $2-per-pack tax on cigarettes. People will simply go over the bridge to buy their smokes (or their Mountain Dew) if they find the price too high within the city. City officials say that, after that big dropoff, they still project the soda tax to bring in $95 million a year.