The economic impacts of the proposal could be significant because parents typically buy baby items right before and right after birth, which is around the time that parental income falls the most, said Jessica Pac, a UW-Madison assistant social work professor.
“If you spend $100 per month just on diapers, and you remove this 5% sales tax, that would be $5 per month, which alone amounts to $60 per year,” Pac said. “But then when you consider all the items covered in the proposal that are purchased in the same time period, it would modestly offset expenses in the first few years of life.”