It’s no secret smoking cigarettes can be harmful for your health, but it can also be detrimental to your wallet.
Smoking costs the United States more than $300 billion annually, and Georgia has the second lowest “true per-person cost of smoking,” according to WalletHub.
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Researchers from the personal finance site recently conducted an experiment to find out how much Americans shell out over a lifetime and annually for its new "The Real Cost of Smoking" report.
To do so, they examined the cost of smoking in each of the 50 states and Washington D.C. using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other institutions.
They also assessed the potential monetary losses due to smoking for each area by calculating the cost of a cigarette pack per day, health care expenditures, income losses and other costs.
After analyzing the results, they found that Georgia’s lifetime cost per smoker is $1,156,444 and its annual cost is $22,675, ranking it right behind Kentucky.
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Here's a snapshot of Georgia's results (1=lowest, 25=average):
- Out-of-pocket cost per smoker ($86,932) - No. 3
- Financial-opportunity cost per smoker ($730,268) - No. 3
- Health care cost per smoker ($119,262) No. 3
- Income loss per smoker ($208,231) - No. 20
- Other costs per smoker ($11,751) - No. 28
The southern region had the lowest overall costs for cigarettes. Mississippi was No. 4, Tennessee was No. 6, Alabama was No. 7 and South Carolina was No. 8.
But which states are the most expensive?
The cost was highest for New York. There, smokers dish out $2,330,381 in a lifetime and $45,694 per year. Massachusetts was the second highest state. People spend $2,209,285 in a lifetime and $43,319 per year.
Want to know how other locations fared? Take a look at the map of findings below.
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