American smokers spend an average of more than $1 million in their lifetime on cigarette-related expenses, according to a new WalletHub study.
The average smoker, as defined by the study, is someone who smokes one pack a day starting from the age of 18 (the legal age to buy) and ending at 69 (the average age of death for a smoker). The researchers determined the cost per person by looking at the cumulative cost of a cigarette pack per day over several decades, health care expenditures, income losses and other costs.
"I and most people really just think of the cost of cigarettes and taxes on the packs, but if you think about the healthcare costs, which can totally be avoided, healthcare insurance premiums, and in the workplace, bias against smokers, that can ... add up," WalletHub spokeswoman Jill Gonzalez said in the study.
South Carolina, the state that spends the least on smoking, the average smoker drops an average of $1,097,690 during his or her lifetime.
If that seems like a lot of cash, smokers in Alaska, at the opposite side of the spectrum, spend an average of $2,032,916 throughout their lives.
Cigarette smoking kills more than 480,000 Americans each year, although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls it "the single largest preventable cause of death and disease in the U.S."
