Data Sets
" "  
Search ERS

 
Publications

Print this page Print | E-mail this link E-mail | Bookmark & Share Bookmark/share | Translate this page Translate | Text only Text only | resize text smallresize text mediumresize text large

Fruit and Vegetable Consumption by Low-Income Americans: Would a Price Reduction Make a Difference?

Cover Image

By Diansheng Dong and Biing-Hwan Lin

Economic Research Report No. (ERR-70) 23 pp, January 2009

Americans’ diets, particularly those of low-income households, fall short of Government recommendations in the quantity of fruits and vegetables consumed. Some proposals suggest that a price subsidy for those products would encourage low-income Americans to consume more of them. This study estimated that a 10-percent subsidy would encourage low-income Americans to increase their consumption of fruits by 2.1-5.2 percent and vegetables by 2.1-4.9 percent. The annual cost of such a subsidy for low-income Americans would be about $310 million for fruits and $270 million for vegetables. And most would still not meet Federal dietary recommendations.

Keywords: Price subsidy, demand elasticity, food consumption, fruits and vegetables, low income, Homescan Data, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), MyPyramid, ERS, USDA

In this report ...

Chapters are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.

Charts and graphs (in .png format) from this report are available in the .zip file listed below. The .zip file also contains a document (readme.txt) that lists the name and title of each chart or graph file.

Order this report (stock #ERR-70)

Updated date: January 9, 2009

For more information, contact: webadmin@ers.usda.gov

Web administration: webadmin@ers.usda.gov