We know smoking causes poverty. So why aren't we treating it like a cost-of-living issue?

Ending smoking would help to lift over a million households out of poverty, giving them desperately needed 'breathing space' in their finances. In this blog Senior Policy Officer Noah Traill explains how smoking contributes to financial hardship and how a roadmap to a smokefree country could eliminate this preventable contributor to the cost-of-living crisis. 

Smoking is rarely mentioned in discussions about the cost-of living. Yet for millions of people across the UK, the cost of tobacco is a significant household expense at a time when food, energy and other essentials are already becoming harder to afford. As an addiction, smoking is not simply a discretionary expense that people can easily cut when money is tight.

I have spent the last six months researching, speaking to those with lived experience and trying to understand just how smoking places a financial burden on families and individuals. ASH’s latest report, Ending smoking inequality, explores why smoking remains concentrated in the most disadvantaged communities and sets out the action needed to close this gap. It makes the case that smoking is not only a public health priority, but also an important part of tackling poverty and inequality.

Every week seems to bring another headline about the cost-of-living - the price of a weekly shop, the jump in energy bills, the squeeze on wages that never quite keeps up. These conversations matter, and they're rightly dominating the national debate. But there's one expense that rarely makes the list, despite quietly pushing families into poverty, and unlike most of the others, it's entirely preventable and fixable. That expense is smoking.

Smoking is, quite rightly, one of the biggest health issues of the last century. It remains the deadliest commercial product ever sold, killing two in three long-term users. But the financial toll it puts on smokers and their families is just as real, and far less discussed.

One of the most effective tools policymakers have used to drive down smoking rates is taxation. Raising the price of tobacco is one of the single most effective levers we have for encouraging quit attempts. Tobacco taxes lower affordability, deter youth and non-smokers and support switching by keeping smoking more expensive than less harmful alternatives.

That effectiveness comes with a cost: taxation raises prices for everyone, and for those least able to quit, it raises the price of an addiction they can't easily walk away from. It means the average smoker now spends nearly £3,000 a year on their addiction - close to £250 a month, disappearing before a single bill is paid. For those whose addiction is hardest to break, generations of smokers, who started as children, or who are managing mental health conditions; this isn't a lifestyle cost. 

Tobacco spend compounds an already difficult picture. Around 7.4 million households are now unable to afford everyday basics, and in April 2026, 79% of adults in Great Britain said their cost of living had risen in just the past month. ONS data shows low-income households experienced above-average inflation in 2023, driven largely by the food and energy price rises of 2021–2024, and these are the same households where smoking rates remain highest.

Smoking rates in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods are much higher than the least. Blackpool, the most deprived local authority in England, also has the highest smoking rates – double the national average. Nationally, smoking rates are around 2.5 times as high in the most deprived communities as in the least deprived.  

Because smoking rates are highest among people already under the greatest financial pressure, tobacco spending is not evenly distributed. It deepens existing inequality by taking the largest share from households with the least capacity to absorb it. And progress reflects that same gap: our current projections show that very few disadvantaged groups will reach 1% smoking rates by 2040 – the Smokefree Action Coalition target. The majority of disadvantaged smokers will lag behind becoming smokefree years, and in some cases decades, after the rest of society.

For families already close to, or below, the poverty line, there's little room left to absorb further cost. Every pound matters, and where it goes can be the difference between managing and going without. But unlike food or heating, tobacco is a cost that can be removed - if the addiction driving it is properly addressed. 

Tobacco dependence is powerful, persistent and unevenly distributed. Quitting is possible, but it is rarely simple: on average, it takes around 30 quit attempts to stop smoking successfully. For disadvantaged people, the picture is more complex with the pressures and stresses of life impacting their ability to stop smoking and stay quit.  

This matters because smoking is one of the clearest examples of how addiction can both reflect and reinforce inequality. It accounts for around half the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest communities across the UK. In short, disadvantaged households are more likely to smoke, more likely to stay smoking because of the external stresses disadvantage brings, and so more likely to face the health and financial harms that smoking causes.  

This is backed up by our analysis, which found that tobacco expenditure pushes an additional 417,000 households below the poverty line, including 137,000 children. It also found that a further 955,000 households are pushed deeper into poverty because money spent on tobacco is no longer available for essentials such as food, heating and housing. Taken together, our findings show that an extra 1.37 million households are living in poverty once tobacco spend is taken into account.

Sadly, the financial impact is visible in people's day-to-day lives. People who smoke are nearly three times as likely to attend food banks as people who have never smoked and one in four smokers reported skipping meals and going hungry in the last year. 

Support for smokers could lift nearly half a million households out of poverty and give them ‘breathing room’ in their finances – easing the cost-of-living crisis for some of the people it will make the most difference to.  

The new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has declared that his government will be a ‘cost-of-living government’, committed to giving families ‘breathing room’ in their finances. Many of the challenges facing the Government on this issue relate to complex geopolitical issues (such as food and fuel prices). However, smoking is an avoidable, preventable and modifiable cause of poverty.  

The Government has already invested record levels in smoking cessation services to support the 4.9 million current smokers. However, they have not yet published a roadmap to a smokefree country which would lay out a new target to end smoking alongside specific targets for at risk populations. 

We need to ensure that we are putting funding in the right places and reaching the right people with interventions. In practice, we need to expand access to support, cessation aids and quit campaigns.  

We need to deliver support in settings that people already use - in emergency departments, food banks, lung screenings, and in-patient pathways. When support is accessed, practitioners need to have the tools to help people quit. Vapes, lozenges, chewing gum, and other nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) should be free in every stop smoking service so that people can find the right option that works for them.

Support also needs to work around people’s lives. For those who cannot easily attend a clinic or waiting room because of work, childcare, transport or other barriers, digital programmes can extend the reach of services and offer flexible help at the point people need it. 

Ultimately, we need a system that is responsive to people’s needs, equitable and easy to access. Closing this gap requires targeted action for the communities facing the greatest barriers to quitting, so that no one is left behind in a smokefree future. 

Ending smoking makes sense from both a health and economic perspective. But ultimately, it is about freedom, dignity and giving people back control over their lives and finances. 

Read our report on Ending smoking inequality to find out where smoking rates remain highest and what action can help close the gap.