Americans are continuing to grapple with high grocery costs, but one Arizona lawmaker is hoping to ease the pain by eliminating sales tax.
State Rep. Leo Biasiucci has introduced bipartisan legislation to prohibit cities and towns from taxing food items eligible for SNAP and WIC. Arizonans with those federal food assistance benefits already do not pay sales tax.
"Look, these are the foods that we're trying to get on people's plates when they're struggling," he said. "And so whether you're on the program or not, you need these foods to survive."
While larger cities like Phoenix and Tucson don't tax groceries, other Valley cities like Scottsdale and Tempe do.
Biasiucci told ABC15 this is a way to lower taxes for families who are stretched thin by high prices but don't qualify for federal food assistance.
"Why are we punishing them and hurting their wallets when they might be needing those extra dollars that they're paying on the taxes?" he said.
He introduced similar legislation last year. Voters in November will decide on the ballot measure, which would cap sale tax on many groceries and require a public votes before a municipality could hike the tax.
Some grocery products, notably eggs, have gotten cheaper during President Donald Trump's second term – but overall grocery prices are up about 1.9%, Consumer Price Index figures show.
But far more grocery products have gotten more expensive than have gotten cheaper, and overall grocery prices continue to go up.
The Consumer Price Index inflation report for December, released last week, show grocery prices spiked from November to December at the fastest month-to-month rate — 0.7% — in more than three years; they were 2.4% higher in December than a year prior.
However, those figures could be affected by the fall government shutdown.
