The children be darned! Tobacco taxes.

[pomtzu]

The POTUS promised he wouldnt raise taxes on the poor, news flash, most smokers and tobacco users are poor!

I just heard something on the evening news that backs this up:

34% of people with an income under $12,000 are smokers. yet only 13% of people with an income over $90,000 are smokers.

Just a little bit of useless info if anyone is interested.......

[Edwina's Secretary]

I just heard something on the evening news that backs this up:

34% of people with an income under $12,000 are smokers. yet only 13% of people with an income over $90,000 are smokers.

Just a little bit of useless info if anyone is interested.......

It would be interested to know further coorelation. Are they poor because they smoke or do they smoke because they are poor?

Is it because they cannot afford smoking cessation programs? Stress? Hopelessness?

It is a bit counter-intuitive. It is an expensive habit -- it has been for many, many years. So it would seem to be something that people who cannot afford it would not do.

Are there any other correlations that might help explain it? Education level -- anything like that?

[pomtzu]

It would be interested to know further coorelation. Are they poor because they smoke or do they smoke because they are poor?

Is it because they cannot afford smoking cessation programs? Stress? Hopelessness?

It is a bit counter-intuitive. It is an expensive habit -- it has been for many, many years. So it would seem to be something that people who cannot afford it would not do.

Are there any other correlations that might help explain it? Education level -- anything like that?

It really didn't say any more than to give the figures at the end of a discussion of the tobacco tax.
I personally think it's probably a double-edged sword: smoke/poor - poor/smoke.
And I feel that stress and hopelessness play a much bigger role than not being able to afford a cessation program. Also, most people that smoke do so because they enjoy it, and just aren't interested in quitting. Now that prices are getting out of reach for the lower income folks who do, many will do so out of necessity and not because they really want to. I doubt that you'll see much of a drastic decline in the upper income bracket folks who smoke, since money isn't as much of an issue with them. IMO of course!