An Oddity: Ex-Smokers Earn More than Those Who Have Never Smoked

It has been well documented that smokers make less money than nonsmokers, but it’s less widely known that former smokers earn a 7% wage premium over people who have never smoked, according to an analysis of nearly two decades of U.S. data by Julie L. Hotchkiss of Georgia State University and M. Melinda Pitts of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. The reasons for the ex-smokers’ higher wages are unclear; the authors cite past research suggesting, somewhat cryptically, that people who are able to stop smoking tend to have individual characteristics that are associated with higher productivity.