Among the nation’s less-educated people — those with a high-school-equivalency diploma — the smoking rate remains more than 40 percent.. This fits what I have

Among the nation’s less-educated people — those with a high-school-equivalency diploma — the smoking rate remains more than 40 percent.. This fits what I have always heard: That education is more predictive of smoking than income. I am homeless, as are my two adult sons. We do not smoke. I have about six years of college. Some random thoughts, in no particular order and not backed up by citations: Smoking helps control depression. One anti-depression medication has a shockingly high side effect of causing people to stop smoking. Smoking suppresses appetite. I strongly suspect this is one of the reasons that so many homeless people smoke: Because they sometimes don't eat for up to three days at a time. Smoking also seems to be common in certain situations where it is the only stress relief. Many years ago, I volunteered at a homeless shelter in Vacaville, CA. All the employees seemed to smoke. They had enormous difficulty giving it up because there was nothing else to do on their breaks but either smoke or sit with co workers and talk, who were themselves smoking. If you want to combat this, trying to education the least educated peoples is probably a better path than framing it as a poor vs rich thing. Poverty grows out of lack of education, but some very educated people don't have much money for various reasons. I run the San Diego Homeless Survival Guide in part because I am convinced that good information is sorely lacking and is a genuine means to start solving the difficult problems of the poorest of the poor in the U.S.