SNAP households spent 9.3 percent of their grocery budgets on soft drinks
I have a few issues with this article.<p>One is that basing &quot;they could buy x amount at so and so store&quot; is meaningless because when you are poor you don&#x27;t tend to arbitrage for lower prices, you buy when you&#x27;re out. Not to mention that poor neighbourhoods have fewer supermarkets in number and are less likely to offer sales.<p>But more egregious, the Walmart cited is in a shopping district with a Costco and a HomeDepot in San Leandro which is not in an especially poor area. [1]<p>Non-SNAP families paying 7.1% for soda is a meaningless comparison since generally these families have much bigger food budgets than SNAP families so it&#x27;s not unreasonable to see that figure be lower. Also non-SNAP families have access to more supermarkets and ones with sales.<p>And 9.3% of $256 is $23.80 per month or about $0.80 a day. This is not an abusive amount of expense for a family, yes, it would be nice to offer incentives for better food, but this will be just an excuse to do more poor bashing.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;visualizingeconomics.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2007&#x2F;10&#x2F;14&#x2F;san-francisco-oakland-poverty-map" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;visualizingeconomics.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2007&#x2F;10&#x2F;14&#x2F;san-francisc...</a><p>Update: ninja edit to add part of a sentence