Another Illinois town has passed a grocery tax. Is yours next?

Another Illinois town voted to pass a local grocery tax. See how much grocery shoppers in your community could lose if your local leaders also impose the tax.

Highland, Illinois, voted to implement a 1% local grocery tax once the statewide tax ends in 2026.

Shoppers could have saved a cumulative $300,000 a year had local leaders let the tax expire. The city of roughly 10,000 is in southwestern Illinois, near St. Louis.

Groceries will be 1% cheaper in a little more than a year depending on where you live in Illinois, a savings of about $360 million statewide. Search the table below to see how much shoppers in your town spent on the grocery tax last year, which also provides a rough estimate for how much your neighbors will be taxed if local leaders decide to again impose the tax.

Highland City Councilmen William A. Napper said he received 30 emails from Illinois Policy Institute readers opposed to the 1% tax, which Highland ultimately passed.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Oct. 6 said hitting people at the grocery store was one of the most regressive ways to tax people.

“It was the most regressive tax you could possibly have, taxing people on food,” Pritzker said. “Wealthy people, middle-class people can afford to go to the grocery store and pay 1%. Everybody else, it’s hard. That’s one of the reasons I went after it.”

At the same event in Peoria, Pritzker called the statewide grocery tax “kind of embarrassing.”

So far Highland, Martinsville and Central City have passed local grocery taxes. River Forest leaders are considering the tax.

There are 37 states that don’t tax groceries. Illinois is the only one of the 10 most populous with a grocery tax.

Local governments in those states get by just fine without it.