About 28.8 million U.S. adults smoke cigarettes, representing 11.6% of the adult population as of 2022. That number has dropped dramatically over the decades, down from 41.9% in 1965, but smoking remains far more common in certain communities, states, and income brackets than the national average suggests.
The Current Numbers
The CDC defines a “current smoker” as someone who has smoked at least 100 cigarettes in their lifetime and now smokes every day or some days. By that measure, roughly 1 in 9 American adults still smokes. A more recent snapshot from 2024 put the figure at 9.9% of all adults, suggesting the downward trend is continuing.
For context, the U.S. smoking rate has fallen by more than two-thirds since the mid-1960s. In 1965, nearly 42% of adults smoked. By 2019, that had dropped to 14.2%. The pace of decline has been steady but uneven, with some groups seeing far more progress than others.
Youth Smoking Is at Record Lows
Cigarette use among young people has become rare. In 2024, just 1.7% of high school students and 1.1% of middle school students reported smoking a cigarette in the past 30 days. Those are the lowest numbers ever recorded by the National Youth Tobacco Survey. E-cigarettes have largely replaced traditional cigarettes as the tobacco product teens are most likely to try, with 7.0% of all adults now using e-cigarettes.
Where Smoking Rates Are Highest and Lowest
Geography plays a major role. In 2019, Utah and California had the nation’s lowest adult smoking rates at 7.9% and 10.0%, respectively. At the other end, nearly a quarter of adults in Kentucky (23.6%) and West Virginia (23.8%) still smoked. That threefold gap between the lowest and highest states reflects deep differences in tobacco culture, state-level policies, and economic conditions.
Disparities by Race and Ethnicity
Smoking rates have fallen across all major racial and ethnic groups over the past decade, but not equally. Between 2011 and 2020, the sharpest declines occurred among Hispanic adults (from 12.9% to 8.0%) and non-Hispanic white adults (from 20.6% to 13.3%). Non-Hispanic Black adults saw their rate drop from 19.4% to 14.4%, while non-Hispanic Asian adults went from 9.9% to 8.0%.
American Indian and Alaska Native adults remain a stark outlier. Their smoking prevalence was 27.1% in 2020, down only slightly from 31.5% in 2011. That decline was not statistically significant, meaning this group has essentially seen no measurable progress while every other group has.
LGBTQ+ Adults Smoke at Higher Rates
Lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults smoked at a rate of 16.1% in 2020, compared to 12.3% among heterosexual adults. The gap extends to all tobacco products: 25.1% of LGB adults used some form of commercial tobacco, versus 18.8% of straight adults. Among high school students, the disparity is similar. About 17.4% of gay, lesbian, or bisexual students used tobacco in 2021, compared to 11.4% of heterosexual students. For middle schoolers, the gap was even wider, with tobacco use three times higher among LGB youth.
Most Smokers Want to Quit
The majority of people who smoke don’t want to keep smoking. In 2022, 67.7% of adult smokers said they wanted to quit, and 53.3% reported making at least one quit attempt in the past year. That means more than half of all smokers actively tried to stop. The gap between wanting to quit and succeeding reflects how powerfully addictive nicotine is. Most quit attempts fail within the first week, and it often takes multiple tries before someone stops for good.
The Bigger Picture
The U.S. has made enormous progress on smoking. A behavior that was once nearly universal among American men is now practiced by roughly 1 in 10 adults, and barely 1 in 50 teenagers. But the national average obscures the reality that smoking is increasingly concentrated among specific populations: people in Appalachian and Southern states, American Indian and Alaska Native communities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and those living in poverty. The 28.8 million Americans who still smoke face serious health consequences, and the communities where smoking remains most entrenched are often the ones with the fewest resources to address it.