In advance of Valentine’s Day, Kirk and Davis call to end Job-Crushing Federal Sugar Program
More than 7,000 Illinois Jobs Depend on the Candy Industry
Recently Passed Farm Bill Continues Price Supports That Have Shipped 130,000 Jobs Overseas
CHICAGO. IL – U.S. Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Congressman Danny Davis (D-Ill.-07), and Bill Kelley, Vice Chair of Jelly Belly, Inc. held a press conference today to call for an end of the U.S. Sugar Program that artificially creates high prices for sugar producers at the expense of consumers and Illinois-based candy manufacturers. The U.S. Sugar Program sets prices and limits exports, which has doubled the cost of domestic sugar compared to global prices.
Sen. Kirk and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) have introduced legislation in the Senate to end the program, but the effort was not included in the recently passed Farm Bill due to extensive lobbying from “Big Sugar.” Congressman Davis is leading a similar effort in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“For decades, Chicago has been known as the ‘candy capital’ of the world, but that status is in jeopardy because of the federal Sugar Program,” Senator Kirk said. “More than 130,000 American jobs have been lost over the past 15 years to countries like Brazil because of artificially high domestic sugar prices. It’s time that we end this program that has cost American consumers nearly $14 billion since 2008.”
“In 1987 Brach’s, located in the 7th Congressional District, was Chicago’s sixth-largest manufacturer, with 4,000 workers,” Congressman Davis said. “The average worker spent 27 years in a Brach’s plant. Â Largely due to the sugar subsidy those jobs, those careers, are gone now and the old Brach’s factory in the industrial park on Chicago’s Westside which once employed over 1,000 workers is a wasteland. The continuation of the sugar program today puts 600,000 American manufacturing jobs at unnecessary risk while the cost to taxpayers has skyrocketed and will continue to grow.”
Candy and confectionery companies employ more than 7,000 people in Illinois. Jelly Belly, Ferrara Pan, Mars, Nestle and Tootsie Roll are just some of the nationwide household names with factories in the state.
On May 22, 2013, the U.S. Senate voted on the Shaheen-Kirk Amendment to the Farm Bill that would have ended the Sugar Program. Â As a result of significant lobbying by sugar producers, the amendment failed narrowly by a vote of 45-54. In June, the House voted on a similar proposal backed by Congressman Davis with a vote of 206-221. The Farm Bill was signed into law by President Obama last week.
