Georgia Has The Lowest Smoking Costs In Nation, New Report Finds

GEORGIA — It's no secret that smoking is bad for your health, but it's just as bad for your wallet, too. If you smoke in Georgia, it costs you $36,504 a year, according to a new report by WalletHub.

That's a year's salary for some people. While that number may sound like a lot, the Peach State actually has the lowest smoking costs in the country, ranking No. 1 overall.

But the numbers don't get better. The estimated financial cost of smoking over a lifetime is just above $2.3 million per smoker, according to the personal-finance data website.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, $3.2 billion was spent on health care costs in Georgia due to smoking in 2009. As you can probably imagine, that number is likely higher today.

In addition, nearly 12,000 adults in Georgia die from smoking-related illnesses every year, the CDC reports.

To encourage the estimated 34.2 million tobacco users in the U.S. to kick this dangerous habit, WalletHub looked into the true per-person cost of smoking in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

"We calculated the potential monetary losses — including both the lifetime and annual cost of a cigarette pack per day, health care expenditures, income losses and other costs — brought on by smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke," the company wrote in a news release.

Here’s how Georgia performed in other categories:

• Out-of-pocket cost per smoker: $96,886 (Rank: No. 2)
• Financial-opportunity cost per smoker: $1,013,579 (Rank: No. 2)
• Health care cost per smoker: $121,655 (Rank: No. 2)
• Income loss per smoker: $507,168 (Rank: No. 21)
• Other costs per smoker : $12,923 (Rank: No. 31)
• Total cost over lifetime per smoker: $1,752,212

According to WalletHub, Washington, D.C., has the highest smoking costs in the country. Smokers in the District of Columbia will pay the highest out-of-pocket cost, which is $197,801.

Here's how other states compared:

States with the Lowest Smoking Costs

1. Georgia
2. Mississippi
3. Missouri
4. North Carolina
5. Alabama
6. South Carolina
7. Tennessee
8. Kentucky
9. Idaho
10. Louisiana

States with the Highest Smoking Costs

42. New Jersey
43. Minnesota
44. Alaska
45. Hawaii
46. Maryland
47. Rhode Island
48. New York
49. Massachusetts
50. Connecticut
51. Washington, D.C.