With the economic and societal costs of smoking totaling more than $300 billion a year and rising, the personal-finance website WalletHub released its report on The Real Cost of Smoking by State. To encourage the estimated 36.5 million tobacco users in the U.S. to kick the dangerous habit, WalletHub calculated the potential monetary losses – including the lifetime and annual costs of a cigarette pack per day, health care expenditures, income losses and other costs – brought on by smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke. Here is the financial cost of smoking in Illinois ((1=Lowest, 25=Average):
- Out-of-Pocket Cost per Smoker – $141,660 (Rank: 39th)
- Financial-Opportunity Cost per Smoker – $1,190,008 (Rank: 39th)
- Health-Care Cost per Smoker – $179,902 (Rank: 35th)
- Income Loss per Smoker – $241,520 (Rank: 35th)
- Other Costs per Smoker – $12,078 (Rank: 31st)
- Total Cost Over Lifetime per Smoker: $1,765,168
- Total Cost per Year per Smoker: $34,611
Smoking costs the average Illinois smoker $1,765,168 over a lifetime! In New York it's $2,330,381 (Rank: 51st), Texas $1,470,116 (Rank: 26th) and Kentucky $1,145,128 (Rank: 1st).
Read the full report via WalletHub.com.