Based on my experience growing up poor, fruit juice was always more expensive than soda. If you’re living in shitty housing you’re probably not drinking much juice.
The question isn't choosing between fruit juice or soda, it is rather whether parents might be more likely to give their kids fruit juice to placate them, or because they mistakenly think "fruit = healthy".
Cursory research shows that might be the case(regarding lower income consuming more fruit juice):
> By contrast, the highest 100% juice consumption was found among children, racial/ethnic minorities and lower-income groups.
> parents might be more likely to give their kids fruit juice to placate them, or because they mistakenly think "fruit = healthy".
I wouldn't be surprised if people who have difficultly affording/accessing fruit would think juice was "at least some form of fruit". The packaging often seems to be designed explicitly to mislead us into thinking that way.
The shelf life of juice is easily in its favor too. Normally, I have easy access to fresh produce and in our house it's about even odds that fruit will go bad before it's eaten and I don't have the stresses and struggles of a low income household with children that could make that even worse. If I were on a very tight budget it might be hard to justify the expense on something you're likely to throw away.
