Report: Smoking in New York Will Cost You Millions, and Here’s Why
Where there's smoke, there's often fire, and if you're a smoker in New York, it appears as though you're burning through money at an alarming rate. A recent study was published, documenting the amount of money spent by the average smoker in each state.
If the numbers are to be believed, the total spent by smokers in the Empire State should set off more alarms than just the smoke detector.
WalletHub Study Shares Stats on Money Spent By Smokers in New York
A report from ABC News 10 in Albany shared data collected by WalletHub on money spent by smokers during their lifetime. WalletHub calculated the estimated monetary losses of a smoker, weighing factors such as the lifetime and annual cost of a cigarette pack per day, health care expenditures, income losses and other costs.
When everything was added together, it was estimated that the average New York resident who smokes will spend $3,906,274 on anything related to, or affected by, their smoking. In total, New York is the third-most expensive state in the nation for smoking, behind only the District of Columbia, and Connecticut.
Here's how WalletHub reached their shocking total sum for New York:
- Out-of-Pocket Cost: $209,539
- Financial Opportunity Cost: $2,804,501
- Health-Care Cost per Smoker: $262,543
- Income Loss per Smoker: $614,451
- "Other Costs" per Smoker: $15,240
New York was ranked 51st, or last, in both out-of-pocket cost and financial opportunity cost, meaning the totals you see above in those categories were higher than any other state.
Here is how New York's total sum stacks up against neighboring states:\
- Connecticut: $3,935,754 (50th)
- Massachusetts: $3,875,930 (48th)
- Rhode Island: $3,861,531 (47th)
- New Jersey: $3,336,611 (39th)
- Vermont: $3,320,395 (38th)
- Pennsylvania: $3,169,520 (37th)
- New Hampshire: $2,889,660 (32nd)
Notice a trend with any of these totals? It's extremely expensive to smoke regularly in the Northeast, more so than any other region in the United States. With companies continuing to boost prices of cigarettes, and taxes on the product continuing to rise, it will be fascinating to watch the rate at which these total figures increase.