Governor Should Stop Gouging Poor Adults Who Smoke

Lindsey Stroud

In her State of the State address, Governor Kathy Hochul (D-New York) was met with resounding applause as she declared that the state of New York will “not be raising income taxes this year.” Unfortunately, in her State of the State book, Hochul stated that she wants to raise taxes on poor people who smoke, as well as restrict the sales of all flavored tobacco products. Currently, the state only bans the retail sale of flavored e-cigarette products, not all flavored tobacco products.

The New York State Assembly should be wary as their existing flavored e-cigarette ban correlates with an increase in young adult smoking and current (and proposed) cigarette taxes will disproportionately harm low-income persons.

Hochul is calling for a $1-per-pack increase, which would bring the state excise tax to $5.35-per-pack.  She also wants to “expand upon the State’s ban on the sales of flavored vaping products by prohibiting the sale of all products.”

There is no need for a flavored tobacco ban because e-cigarettes are already banned in the Empire State. In 2022, 9.4 percent of youth reported using a vapor product in the past month, compared to 1.9 percent who reported smoking a cigar, 1.6 percent who reported smoking a combustible cigarette and 1.3 percent who had used smokeless tobacco. These are some of the lowest levels ever recorded.

While the ban denies adults access to less harmful alternatives to smoking, it was supposed to address youth use of e-cigarettes.

But, unfortunately, New York’s current ban on flavored e-cigarette products correlates with increases in young adult smoking. The flavored e-cigarette ban went into effect July 1, 2020. Between 2020 and 2021 (according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), smoking rates among young adults aged 18 to 24 years old increased by 12.7 percent from 5.5 percent in 2020 to 6.2 percent in 2021. Comparatively, nationally, young adult smoking rates decreased on average by 19.7 percent.

Deeply damning is that the governor doesn’t want to harm New Yorkers through increased income taxes, yet has no issue with harming lower income, lower educated adults who happen to smoke with even higher cigarette excise taxes.

In 2021, among all New York adults earning less than $25,000 a year, 20.4 percent were currently smoking, compared to only 6.4 percent of adults who earned $50,000 or more. Among New Yorkers with less than a high school education, 19.2 percent were smoking, compared to only 5.7 percent of college graduates.

Moreover, the last state excise tax increase failed to significantly reduce smoking rates among these low-income adults. In 2010, the state increased the cigarette tax by $1.60 to $4.35-per-pack. Between 2010 and 2021, smoking rates among New Yorkers earning $25,000 or less decreased by only 8.1 percent, compared to a 34.4 percent decrease among adults earning $50,000 or more.

Instead of gouging the pockets of low income, low educated New Yorkers, the governor should utilize the already-existing tobacco monies the state profits off from the lungs of smokers. This would show that the governor truly cares about addressing smoking. 

The tax and tobacco settlement money being collected isn’t being used to address smoking. In 2021, New York collected an estimated $919.9 million in state cigarette excise taxes and another $764.4 million in tobacco settlement payments, or more than $1.6 billion. Yet, in 2021, the state allocated only $39.8 million in state funding towards tobacco control programs. Essentially, for every $1 the state received from cigarettes being sold in the state, it spent only $0.02 on programs to prevent youth use and help adults quit.

The New York General Assembly needs to reject Hochul’s call for increased cigarette excise taxes and a full-flavored tobacco ban. It is a bad policy, especially for lower-income New Yorkers.

Originally published in The Buffalo News.