During the 2024 Presidential Elections, much was made about the importance of the Rust Belt, a strip of northern states that once housed the industries responsible for creating the building blocks of America as we now know it.
Officially, the rust belt includes Indiana, northern Illinois, and upstate New York, but today the term “Rust Belt” practically refers to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio. In the late 19th and early 20th century, these states churned out and processed the raw materials, such as coal, steel, and iron, which allowed the United States to build itself up into an industrialized power house, producing cars, trains, buildings, and farm equipment (among other things) that were critical to people all across the US. Workers flocked to these states, which were originally part of the Steel Belt or Factory Belt, for well paying factory jobs and the local economies, and the economy of the country at large, boomed because of it.
But as we know now, that didn’t last forever. Due to free trade agreements, environmental regulations, and cheap off-shore labor, these states and their once vibrant communities were abandoned by the companies they once held in near religious air. The federal government was also much to blame for this downfall and soon citizens who once never dreamed of leaving their beloved areas began streaming out en masse. The ones who stayed competed for fewer and fewer jobs, and when supply outweighs demand, their wages plummeted. Once the beacon of American manufacturing, these states are still struggling mightily with the fall out of the Rust Belt collapse; one look at Detroit and the issues are blatantly clear.
That’s not to say that everything is awful today, far from it in some places, but for many decades this region found itself in a positive feedback loop where less jobs meant lower wages, lower wages meant lower tax revenues, lower tax revenues meant less government assistance for struggling industries, and struggling industries meant less jobs.
So it’s no wonder that these areas then became known for something else, perhaps less desirable, but no doubt they were once again the kings of a domain.
Drinking and smoking.
No One Parties Like The Rust Belt
It’s no secret that the Midwest can drink…
Take a look at this list (albeit from 2018) of the Top 10 cities where people get the drunkest. 6 are from Wisconsin alone and the rest are either very Midwestern or tangentially Midwestern, showing that people up north, especially in Wisconsin, can put them back.
Who is drinking the most? The drunkest cities in America. https://t.co/bg10ZRqmeF pic.twitter.com/oVN9nJVHrs
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) May 15, 2018
And what goes better with a bit of excessive drinking that a smoke?
Well, a new map created by X user TownsUSA shows a very cool data visual aggregating the overlap of smoking and excessive drinking in every county in the United States.
No surprise, the Rust Belt (and Midwest at large) was a clear outlier…
The key is in the bottom right. Red represents excessive drinking while blue represents smoking. The darker each color gets, the more prevalent it is in a given county.
I've been messing with bivariate symbology using county health data. Here's everyone's favorite: drinking and smoking pic.twitter.com/CL9zTBneNy
— New town every hour (@TownsUsa) March 13, 2025
The map was created with Google Maps/Places API using this script and this methodology, if you want to dive in yourself.
Honestly, I’m not surprised. I’ve been to Green Bay twice now and let me tell you, those people put down Busch Lights and Fireball like you would not believe. I can hang with some of the best of them but those people are built different, there’s just no way around it… I’d like to see the overlap of excessive drinking and Liquid I.V. purchases next because there has to be a solid correlation there you’d think…
I love (in a strange way) my homestate of Pennsylvania showing up in dark red. We used to say the state was Philly on one side, Pittsburgh on the other, and Pennsyl-tucky in the middle, but looks like we should be calling it Eau Claire in the middle.
Also, this is proof that Ohio is the worst. What do you people have that makes you turn up your nose on a few cold ones and a Marlboro every now and again? Also, why are you still living in Ohio?
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The post No One Smokes & Drinks Like The Rust Belt, This Data Map Proves It first appeared on Whiskey Riff.