Boston’s City Council is weighing a tax on sugary drinks to improve health, advance equity, and increase its coffers by tens of millions of dollars a year. Such progressive policies seek revenue in the name of rescue but inevitably inflict more significant inequities on the marginalized communities they purport to serve. A sugar tax is a regressive sin tax on the victims instead of the true sinners.
Monkey See, Monkey Do?
Councilor Sharon Durkan introduced Boston’s recent proposal, pointing to similar programs in five other large, notably progressive cities. Claiming “a 1% or 2% per-ounce tax on SSBs [sugar-sweetened beverages] could prevent more than 6,000 cases of obesity, reduce diabetes by 9%, and save more than $90 million in healthcare costs over the first decade of implementation,” Durkan pointed to Boulder, Oakland, Philadelphia, Seattle, and San Francisco, where sugary drink prices have risen 33.1% under similar policies.
Durkan seeks to have her (sugar-free) bureaucratic cake and eat it too, claiming:
“A SSBT of $0.02 per ounce could generate $20-$30 million annually for Boston. Imagine how our communities could benefit from those funds. We could invest in food literacy programs that teach families how to cook nutritious meals, and support recreational spaces and youth sports for our families to thrive. We could also allocate a portion of the revenue to the general fund, helping to address citywide priorities like infrastructure, housing, and education.
“This is about linking Boston’s health goals with its economy.”
This policy analysis misses some crucial connections, especially that massive federal sugar subsidies of some $4 billion annually already punish marginalized communities by artificially raising sugar prices to roughly twice the world market price, and subsidies for corn (used to manufacture high fructose syrup) exceeded $116 billion since 1995, making that sickening sweetener cheaper. According to recent statistics from the USDA, grocery prices increased at the fastest pace in a year last month and are 28% higher than five years ago.
Businesses Close, Government Grows
Most Boston residents, including those in low-income Roxbury, have not seen wage or fixed-income increases to keep pace with food inflation. Boston rents and transportation costs rose last year, and energy prices, including home heating fuels, have spiked during a cold winter, compelling residents to turn up their thermostats. Because economic growth in the city was anemic in 2024, property values declined, and so property taxes increased. It seems progressive governments always ensure their spending is not curtailed when the broader economy declines. It is easy to see the moral hazard of government looking for more revenue in the name of “helping marginalized communities.” Yet Durkan claimed, “This is not just a policy to regulate sugary drinks. This is a step towards a healthier, more equitable Boston.”
Retail sales taxes are always regressive. Though Durkan has suggested some of the money “could” be invested in food literacy programs, plainly the council is seeking sources to fill its general fund. Earmarking the money to be devoted 100% to Roxbury and other “marginalized” areas would go a long way to legitimizing the effort, but this does not appear to be on the planning table. Even then, a significant portion of funds sapped from targeted “sodas, fruit drinks, sports drinks, energy drinks, and sweetened coffee drinks” would be absorbed by government administration of the scheme.
Punishment by Tax
Such policies saddle retail businesses with unreimbursed compliance costs and threaten Boston’s commercial sector during unstable economic times. Councilor Ed Flynn objected that members of Teamsters Local 25 are “clearly opposed” to the proposal, observing that “small businesses and residents are already hurting due to difficult economic conditions.” Councilor Julia Mejia echoed this concern for small businesses, additionally cautioning councilors that they “need to keep in mind that many people of color and low-income residents already ‘feel under attack’ by the government telling them what they can eat and drink.”
While Boston cannot impact federal sugar and crop subsidies, if it really wants to improve citizens’ health, it can do so without pummeling the least wealthy with regressive taxes that seed anxiety and make them poorer. Humans respond better to reason and education that allows them to make personal choices than government edicts that foster resentment and oppositional defiance. Perhaps Boston should cut wasteful general fund spending and divert the savings directly to educational initiatives or income-based coupons for healthier foods.
A “slippery slope” also hangs over Boston’s City Council. Once this Pandora’s Box of regressive taxes is opened, will ultra-processed foods, hydrogenated fats, candy bars, MSG, and other unhealthy food options be saddled with taxes that swell city coffers in the name of equitable salvation?
To impose the proposed new SSBT, Boston will require the Massachusetts Legislature to approve a home rule petition, which faces substantial hurdles. Taxpayers, including those in low-income neighborhoods, would be better served if the city dropped this dubious effort and studied more effective avenues during times of economic uncertainty.
A tax on unhealthy foods made cheap on the taxpayer dime is a double-whammy on the marginalized communities Durkan understandably seeks to help and a direct attack on individual liberties by a nanny city government. Regressive taxes are the very opposite of “progressive” and plunge the poorest of the poor and their children into deeper poverty and even worse health outcomes when faced with increasing food and housing insecurity.
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