Philadelphia’s soda tax added jobs thanks to increased funding for child care, a new study says

September 22, 2021

The Rutgers study took a macroeconomic approach in an attempt to look at the ripple effects of the tax, and not just its impact on directly affected industries.

Michael L. Lahr, a public policy professor at Rutgers and the study’s primary author, said he expected to see that the tax had a positive effect on the city’s economy once researchers looked at the impact of improved access to child care. But he didn’t expect to find that there was even a small net employment increase of 216 jobs without taking parental employment into account, thanks largely to jobs growing faster in childcare and government than they fell in the beverage industry.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 22, 2021

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