On Thursday, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms joined Georgians affected by rising grocery prices at Al Huda Grocery in Lawrenceville to announce her plan to bring down costs and reduce the tax burden for Georgia families on groceries, take-home family meals, diapers, baby formula, and feminine hygiene products. Georgia families face the 11th highest costs of groceries in the country — spending more of their budget on groceries than the average American.
. The average household in Georgia spends roughly $8,960 a year on groceries—the 11th-highest total in the nation and more than 12% above the national average.
Those costs continue to rise. Grocery prices are higher than when Donald Trump returned to office, while his tariffs and trade policies are putting additional pressure on family budgets. The war in Iran has further increased energy, transportation, and agricultural costs—expenses that can ultimately raise prices at the grocery store.
For families already stretching every dollar, sales taxes on groceries and other necessities make essential purchases even less affordable. Research conducted by Georgia State University’s Fiscal Research Center for the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts found that grocery-tax exemptions reduce food costs and provide the greatest relative benefit to lower-income households, which spend a much larger share of their income on groceries. Households earning less than $15,000 a year spend about 41% of their income on groceries, compared with roughly 2% for households earning more than $200,000.
Keisha Lance Bottoms’ Local Grocery and Family Essentials Tax Relief Plan would allow cities and counties to eliminate or temporarily suspend local sales taxes on groceries and other basic necessities. It would also provide targeted state assistance to communities that could face a disproportionate loss of revenue.
The principle is simple: When the cost of feeding and caring for a family rises, government should find practical ways to make necessities more affordable. Georgia families should not have to pay additional taxes on milk, eggs, baby formula, diapers, feminine-hygiene products, or a take-home meal picked up after a long day at work.
Georgia already exempts most groceries from the state’s 4% sales tax, but local sales taxes still apply. Research from Georgia State University’s Fiscal Research Center found that the state exemption lowers food costs and makes Georgia’s tax system less regressive.
The Local Grocery and Family Essentials Tax Relief Plan would allow communities to eliminate or temporarily suspend applicable local sales taxes on:
- Groceries
- Qualifying take-home family meals
- Baby formula
- Diapers
- Feminine-hygiene products
The take-home family-meal exemption would apply to prepared foods purchased from grocery stores, warehouse clubs, and similar retailers for families to eat at home. Qualifying items could include a $5 rotisserie chicken from Costco, prepared meatloaf, stuffed peppers, lasagna, and other ready-to-heat family meals.
The idea is simple: A working parent picking up dinner on the way home should not pay more in taxes merely because the store prepared the meal.
Restaurant meals, fast food, and food intended for immediate consumption would remain subject to sales tax.
Two options for local governments
A city or county could permanently eliminate its applicable local sales taxes on qualifying groceries and family essentials.
Alternatively, a community could temporarily suspend those taxes when grocery prices rise significantly. Temporary relief would be tied to the federal Consumer Price Index for Food at Home, which tracks price changes at grocery stores and supermarkets. Using this measure would ensure that relief is triggered by grocery inflation—not unrelated increases in housing, gasoline, or other costs.
A participating local government could suspend the tax for a defined period, such as six months, and extend the suspension if grocery prices remain elevated.
Not every Georgia community has the same tax base. In some smaller cities and counties, a Walmart Supercenter, supermarket, or other major retailer generates a significant share of local sales-tax revenue. Eliminating taxes on groceries could therefore have a much greater budget impact in those communities than in larger jurisdictions with more diverse retail economies.
Georgia State University’s research likewise found that grocery spending is unevenly distributed across the state and that the fiscal effect of a grocery-tax exemption varies significantly by county.
To protect local budgets, Keisha Lance Bottoms’ plan would establish a $250 million Local Tax Relief Stabilization Fund. The fund would provide a temporary financial backstop for communities disproportionately affected by grocery and family-essentials tax relief.
A participating city or county would qualify for state assistance if its estimated revenue loss exceeded 5% of the jurisdiction’s total local sales-and-use tax collections from the previous completed fiscal year. Subject to available funding, the state would help offset the portion of the loss above that threshold.
For example, if a community collected $10 million in local sales-and-use taxes during the previous fiscal year and the exemption caused an $800,000 revenue loss, the community would absorb the first $500,000. It could then seek state assistance for the remaining $300,000.
The fund would be open to any qualifying city or county, but it would be especially valuable to smaller communities with more concentrated retail tax bases
