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I just came across a video that was also shared on Facebook, that claims that a recent US Department of Agriculture study found that 10% of food stamp purchases go to soda, or $8.5 billion annually. They also say that

the #1 item purchased through food stamps (SNAP) is soda.

Is this true?

ff524
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  • I've heard claims about some people using SNAP to buy soda to sell at a discounted price to convert food stamps into cash. – Andrew Grimm Jan 18 '17 at 07:03
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    @Andrew possibly you heard about [this really weird story](http://www.snopes.com/muslim-soda-food-stamps/), which started with an unverifiable claim about a woman allegedly buying soda with food stamps to resell, and ends with that woman's husband being charged with welfare fraud for buying _other_ people' food stamp cards and using them to buy stuff to resell? – ff524 Jan 18 '17 at 07:34
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    As soda is often the cheapest drink sold, cheaper than bottled water, why would that be strange? – Agent_L Jan 18 '17 at 09:49
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    Concerning Soda vs bottles water: how drinkable does tap-water tend to be in the US? – Layna Jan 18 '17 at 12:16
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    Does anyone know what's the "street" cash-rate for food stamps? In Education of a Speculator Niederhofer (quoting some hobo) gives 50% but that sounds very profitable for the buyer. – TheMathemagician Jan 18 '17 at 13:14
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    @Layna, there are some answers to a question about that [at SE](http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/39777/is-tap-water-drinkable-in-massachusetts-and-elsewhere-in-usa). I could suspect also that a large amount of the soda purchases are in southern states (warmer climate and many poorer dwellings do not have A/C, not to forget that water quality and taste is also dependent on the quality of the pipes which may not be great) –  Jan 18 '17 at 13:18
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    @Layna entirely drinkable if by "drinkable" you mean potable. If you include aesthetic factors like temperature, taste, amount of sugar and carbonation, your results will vary. – ReasonablySkeptical Jan 18 '17 at 13:58
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    @Layna If you live in [Flint Michigan](http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/04/us/flint-water-crisis-fast-facts/), "not very". Some reports put the quality at [~90% in compliance with EPA standards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_water_quality_in_the_United_States), but [unregulated chemical contamination is widespread](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tap-drinking-water-contaminants-pollutants/). Some people are fine with tap water, and some are very concerned about it - and some people have good reason to be concerned, whether they are or not. You could say "it's complicated". – BrianH Jan 18 '17 at 18:35
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    @BrianDHall there are very, very few places like that in the US though. In general, you can drink any tap water anywhere without worry in the states. – user428517 Jan 18 '17 at 22:30
  • @TheMathemagician $1 in EBT gets your between $0.25 and $0.75 real money. But it can depend greatly on a number of factors. Most importantly that it's totally illegal. Then there's rather the state uses cards or stamps. Finally if your "selling" to friends or strangers. 50% is pretty normal. – coteyr Jan 18 '17 at 22:46
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    @layna, Tap water in the US is supposed to be 100% drinkable, and usually is. But it's not always available. When your thirsty you need to drink and if didn't plan well for that, or your in a place that doesn't let your bring in outside food and drinks, then your only options are usually water, soda, or sometimes beer. – coteyr Jan 18 '17 at 22:48
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    @sgroves I'm afraid the picture may not be so rosy (though I'm afraid this has veared off-topic): https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/us/regulatory-gaps-leave-unsafe-lead-levels-in-water-nationwide.html?_r=0 Part of the lesson in Flint is that the methods used to test the water were wrong, and it took ridiculous efforts to expose the results and get anything changed. There's few places in the US where tap water will cause you to drop dead or become immediately ill, certainly - but long-term risks like lead and other contaminants are more pernicious and widespread. – BrianH Jan 18 '17 at 23:19
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    @BrianDHall that's true. what i said is also still true. despite that, there remain very, very few places in the US like that. the US is *huge*. – user428517 Jan 19 '17 at 00:27
  • As a ancedote being a housing inspector for rural area in the Midwest with low income residents, this is not suprising. The chronic poor have problems with bill and having their electrical, gas and water service dissconnected. Additionally, not everyone may have clean water if they private wells, sometimes bacteria can contaminate a well and can be hard to stop. – RomaH Jan 19 '17 at 17:08
  • Amazing that a country as wealthy as the USA could have trouble providing its own citizens with clean, flowing drinking water... such that they all have to resort to plastic bottles instead! – Lightness Races in Orbit Jan 19 '17 at 19:34
  • @LightnessRacesinOrbit the amount of bottled water that is sold in the US because somebody is having problem getting clean drinking water is very minimal. I'd be surprised if it was as high as 1%. It's overwhelming sold for convenience, taste, or style. – Ask About Monica Jan 19 '17 at 21:35
  • ***observationally***, I'd say it's closer to 20% – warren Jan 20 '17 at 17:45

1 Answers1

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TL;DR: Some parts of the claim are true, some are false. The first version of a New York Times story on this report contained an error, which seems to have spread (although the NYT story has been updated with the correct number).

Soft drinks were the #1 ranked individual commodity purchased by SNAP households in a 2011 dataset of SNAP transactions at one US grocery retailer (compared to #2 among non-SNAP households), but they constitute 5% of SNAP expenditures (compared to 4% in non-SNAP households), not 10%.

The $8.5 billion number is not accurate. A better estimate would be about $3.86 billion for 2011 (5.44% of $71 billion in SNAP benefits redeemed), if the spending patterns at this one grocery retailer generalize to all SNAP spending. I don't know where the $8.5 billion number came from, it's not in the NYT article.

Here is the USDA report. Note that although the report is from 2016, the data is from 2011. Also, it is based on a dataset from a single grocery retailer; it includes $6.7 billion worth of SNAP household expenditures from that year, less than a tenth of the > $71 billion total SNAP benefits redeemed that year. The dollar amounts in the tables below show the dollar amount of transactions in the dataset, not of all SNAP transactions that year.

The report says:

Across all households, more money was spent on soft drinks than any other item. SNAP households spent somewhat more on soft drinks than non-SNAP households (5 versus 4 percent).

It also notes that 9.3% of SNAP expenditures are on "Sweetened Beverages", a broader category which also includes many beverages not considered "soft drinks": juice drinks (containing 50% juice or less), juice blends and smoothies, sports and energy drinks, sweetened instant tea and hot cocoa mixes, and similar items (see report, appendix B-19, B-20). (Compared to 7.1% in non-SNAP households.) "Sweetened Beverages" is the #2 category by expenditures among SNAP households.

Also see the following tables, which compare the top food items and top food categories purchased by SNAP and non-SNAP households:

Table 5

Table 6

The erroneous 10% number seems to have come from the New York Times, who in a January 13, 2017 story In the Shopping Cart of a Food Stamp Household: Lots of Soda mistakenly wrote:

The findings show that the No. 1 purchases by SNAP households are soft drinks, which accounted for about 10 percent of the dollars they spent on food.

The error was pointed out on Twitter. The current version of the NYT story has the correct 5% number. A correction notice at the bottom of the article says:

Correction: January 18, 2017

An article on Saturday about the grocery spending habits of households receiving food stamps misstated the portion of spending used to purchase soft drinks. Households receiving food stamps spent 9.3 percent of their bills on “sweetened beverages,” a category that includes soft drinks, juices, and energy drinks, among others; they did not spend that percentage on soft drinks alone.

Some more criticisms of the NYT reporting on this story can be found here, here, here, and here.

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    mind that many people consider all non-alcoholic drinks "soft drinks", so the 10% number using that criteria might actually be low as the 9.3 you mention doesn't include things like coffee, milk, and bottled water. – jwenting Jan 18 '17 at 06:58
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    @jwenting The claim in the question is about "soda". Who calls coffee, milk, and bottled water "soda"? – ff524 Jan 18 '17 at 07:00
  • @jwenting Coffee, milk and bottled water are separate categories in the full report. In addition, this are percentages based on actual store-provided sales figures. There is no personal interpretation of buyers related to what product they think counts as soft drinks. – Nzall Jan 18 '17 at 08:33
  • Very nice answer. Could you maybe also correct the $8.5 billion claim. How much money in total goes approximately annually towards soda from food stamps? – NoDataDumpNoContribution Jan 18 '17 at 08:48
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    @Nzall maybe, but many people don't separate them when talking "soft drinks" so would take the total of them all. That's my point... – jwenting Jan 18 '17 at 09:00
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    @jwenting What "many people" would do is not the point of this question. This question asks: "a video on facebook claims that a report of the DoA found that 10% of food stamps purchases are soda. Is this factual?" It does not matter what most people consider soda, it matters what the DoA report considers soda. – Nzall Jan 18 '17 at 09:08
  • @Nzall - True. But what this answer is lacking is a clear comparison between the terms "soft drinks" with respect to the report and "soda" as used in the claim. I can see that "fluid milk products" are not counted as "soft drinks" by the report, but I can see nothing which states whether e.g. fruit juices (or fruit juice based drinks) are "soft drinks". – AndyT Jan 18 '17 at 09:47
  • @andyT The full report is at https://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/ops/SNAPFoodsTypicallyPurchased.pdf. According to the report, juices are a separate category at rank 17. As commodities, difference is made between juices to be stored in the fridge and juices to be stored on the shelf. Note that according to the report, some juices are categorized as fruits. – Nzall Jan 18 '17 at 10:46
  • @Nzall - Fruit juices were one example. And I shouldn't have to go read the report myself, this answer should stand alone including any relevant material. – AndyT Jan 18 '17 at 11:44
  • @ff524 "sweetened beverages" do not include "juices". Juices are #17 in the exhibit 5 list. – DavePhD Jan 18 '17 at 13:38
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    @Dave I edited to clarify what juices are in the "sweetened beverage" category and gave page number of chart for further reference as to specific examples of "sweetened beverage" vs "juices" (vs "soft drinks"). Thanks. – ff524 Jan 18 '17 at 15:25
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    @Nzall I think it does matter whether the definition used in the DoA report matches up with what the video author and the people spreading the claim on facebook consider soda and what they are trying to cause people who see the claim to believe about food stamp recipients' spending habits, so "what most people consider soda" is absolutely relevant. – Random832 Jan 18 '17 at 16:00
  • @Random832 "Soda" may not be what much of the US calls these drinks anyway in many areas outside the North East and California/Arizona: "Pop" is common in the MidWest and "Coke" in the South. But since these "Soft drinks" seem to be most commonly bought in packs of 12-18 according to the report, this is probably what is meant. – Henry Jan 19 '17 at 01:30
  • @andyt I strongly disagree with that statement. One should definitely read data themself before spreading it. –  Jan 19 '17 at 13:27