Quit Smoking, Earn a Higher Wage

Using data from the Tobacco Use Supplement to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey over the period of 1992 to 2011, the economists found that people who had quit smoking for at least a year earned higher wages than smokers and people who had never smoked. The data shows that nonsmokers, which include never smokers and former smokers, bring in about 95% of the hourly wages of former smokers.

Smokers, on the other hand, are not rewarded as much in the workplace. They earned about 80% of nonsmokers’ wages. Even one cigarette a day triggers a wage gap between smokers and nonsmokers, the economists write. “Smoking erodes the value of your human capital in the labor market,” said Ms. Pitts.

There are a variety of reasons why non-smokers tend to earn more than smokers (productivity is not one of those reasons — take your breaks everyone, and get reenergized!). “It takes a special person to quit an addictive behavior, and there is a higher reward for smoking cessation than not ever starting it,” economist M. Melinda Pitts said. Because if you can quit smoking (which is a really tough thing to do), you can do pretty much anything.

Photo: Scott Ackerman

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