Cigarette smoking in the U.S. is at a low point, according to eight decades of Gallup trends. Currently, 11% of U.S. adults say they have smoked cigarettes in the past week, matching the historical low measured in 2022 (and nearly matched at 12% in 2023). When Gallup first asked about cigarette smoking in 1944, 41% of U.S. adults said they smoked. The current smoking rate is about half as large as it was a decade ago and one-third as large as it was in the late 1980s.
The latest results are based on Gallup’s annual Consumption Habits poll, conducted July 1-21. Between the initial measurement of smoking in 1944 and 1974, at least four in 10 adults said they smoked cigarettes. Now, barely one in 10 do.
A major reason for the decline is that cigarette smoking has plummeted among young adults, who typically had been the most likely age group to smoke. Over the past three years, an average of 6% of adults under age 30 say they have smoked cigarettes in the past week, compared with 35% of young adults in 2001 through 2003 surveys.
Young adults are now less likely than other age groups to smoke cigarettes, as 13% of those between the ages of 30 and 49, 18% of those aged 50 to 64 and 9% of those 65 and older say they smoke.
Smoking continues to show a relationship to educational attainment, as 5% of college graduates and 15% of those without a college degree say they have smoked cigarettes, based on combined 2022-2024 data. The rates for both groups are significantly lower than in the past — between 2001 and 2003, an average of 14% of college graduates and 30% of college nongraduates reported smoking.