Wealthy Americans giving less to charity, non-wealthy giving more

[All Along The Watchtower]

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http://philanthropy.com/article/As-Wealthy-Give-Smaller-Share/149191/

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Shocker.

[dead0man]

From the article

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I suppose "Wealthy American Donate $4.6B more than last year" doesn't make for a good headline.

Other bits you won't see paraded around much

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[bedstuy]

Other bits you won't see paraded around much

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To be fair, I think that brings up an important point about charity.  The reason Utahans give so much to charity is that Mormons give 10% of their income to the Mormon church.  I think religious charities may account for a good percentage of Republican charitable giving. 

Does giving money to your church necessarily equate to charity?  Let's say you're just giving money to your local church.  It's somewhere you go once a week and your donations are necessary to keep that institution going.  Isn't that more like paying your gym membership?  Sure, if you're giving money to your local religious soup kitchen, that's definitely charity.  But, giving money to your church is basically a membership fee so a fair accounting would exclude that from the totals.

[Rockefeller GOP]

Shocker.

Rich people are icky and terrible.

[IceSpear]

Other bits you won't see paraded around much

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To be fair, I think that brings up an important point about charity.  The reason Utahans give so much to charity is that Mormons give 10% of their income to the Mormon church.  I think religious charities may account for a good percentage of Republican charitable giving. 

Does giving money to your church necessarily equate to charity?  Let's say you're just giving money to your local church.  It's somewhere you go once a week and your donations are necessary to keep that institution going.  Isn't that more like paying your gym membership?  Sure, if you're giving money to your local religious soup kitchen, that's definitely charity.  But, giving money to your church is basically a membership fee so a fair accounting would exclude that from the totals.

Yeah, reminds me of when Romney talked about how he gave so much income to charity when almost all of it was to the Mormon church.

[Cory]

To be fair, I think that brings up an important point about charity.  The reason Utahans give so much to charity is that Mormons give 10% of their income to the Mormon church.  I think religious charities may account for a good percentage of Republican charitable giving. 

This is the card in the deck that tilts the "charitable giving" statistic in favor of Republicans. It's dishonest once you think about it.

[DrScholl]

From the article

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I suppose "Wealthy American Donate $4.6B more than last year" doesn't make for a good headline.

Other bits you won't see paraded around much

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Wealthier individuals increasing donations by raw dollars isn't the point, the point is that more lower income individuals donate a higher percentage of their income to charity, even though it's more difficult for them to do so.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Who cares?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Other bits you won't see paraded around much

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To be fair, I think that brings up an important point about charity.  The reason Utahans give so much to charity is that Mormons give 10% of their income to the Mormon church.  I think religious charities may account for a good percentage of Republican charitable giving. 

Does giving money to your church necessarily equate to charity?  Let's say you're just giving money to your local church.  It's somewhere you go once a week and your donations are necessary to keep that institution going.  Isn't that more like paying your gym membership?  Sure, if you're giving money to your local religious soup kitchen, that's definitely charity.  But, giving money to your church is basically a membership fee so a fair accounting would exclude that from the totals.

You can't make a neat separation since most soup kitchens are either run by or hosted by churches.   The charitable giving statistics also include all sorts of arts, education and other institutions that are attended in part by the people who give the money to keep them up.  So it is not like this issue is unique to churches.

As for the figures being discussed here, is it basically that people are still giving about the same amount of money that they were six years ago, even though some are making more and some are making less - thus leading to changes in the share of income?

[bedstuy]

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To be fair, I think that brings up an important point about charity.  The reason Utahans give so much to charity is that Mormons give 10% of their income to the Mormon church.  I think religious charities may account for a good percentage of Republican charitable giving. 

Does giving money to your church necessarily equate to charity?  Let's say you're just giving money to your local church.  It's somewhere you go once a week and your donations are necessary to keep that institution going.  Isn't that more like paying your gym membership?  Sure, if you're giving money to your local religious soup kitchen, that's definitely charity.  But, giving money to your church is basically a membership fee so a fair accounting would exclude that from the totals.

You can't make a neat separation since most soup kitchens are either run by or hosted by churches.   The charitable giving statistics also include all sorts of arts, education and other institutions that are attended in part by the people who give the money to keep them up.  So it is not like this issue is unique to churches.

That's definitely true.  There are other charitable contributions in that gray area too.  A good amount of all philanthropy is about contributing to something that directly benefits yourself.  It's like how the rich people in Manhattan give lots of money to the Central Park Conservancy.  It's not a bad thing for sure, but it's not necessarily the same as giving money for the purpose of helping the needy.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Shocker.

Rich people are icky and terrible.

There you go.

[Rockefeller GOP]

Shocker.

Rich people are icky and terrible.

There you go.

Good thing we're not doing obnoxiously well in Maine or we'd have more of 'em!

[Indy Texas]

I guess this is what happens when we view all non-profit organizations as "charities."

People generally use the term to refer to some sort of social service directed at the poor.

In practice, people are influenced by their own surroundings and assumptions, hence most people's charitable giving goes to the church they go to, the university they went to and perhaps some fine art/cultural organization they enjoy like a museum. Lower-income people have to see and deal with the consequences of unaddressed poverty personally, so they are more aware of it and hence more likely to steer their money towards feeding, clothing and housing the poor.

People can do as they please with their own money. But in practice, people don't efficiently allocate private resources to addressing public problems. They'd rather buy pretty pink ribbons for breast cancer than buy Product(RED) merchandise for AIDS, even though the latter is a far more pressing public health concern that less medical progress has been made on. They'd rather donate clothing and canned goods to Haitian disaster victims because sorting through the clothes and cans is a fun community activity, even though just giving the Haitians money would be far more helpful and efficient.

This is why the standard GOP argument that private charity will fill in the gap if government-funded social services are scaled back is total crock.

[Likely Voter]

This is proof that we must give the job creators more tax relief

[Franzl]

From the article

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I suppose "Wealthy American Donate $4.6B more than last year" doesn't make for a good headline.

Well that kind of headline would certainly be misleading. It'd be like saying "Americans spend more on food for children" without mentioning that there are more children to be fed.

[dead0man]

It's more accurate than the headline "Wealthy Americans giving less to charity".

[Franzl]

It's more accurate than the headline "Wealthy Americans giving less to charity".

I didn't say it would be inaccurate, but rather misleading. Wealthy Americans are in fact giving a smaller share of their income to charity.

Or another example, to quote Karl Rove:  "One percent of the American taxpayers pay 39 percent of the burden.". Even if this statement is completely accurate, don't you find it a bit misleading to present an argument in this manner?

[dead0man]

and I haven't said it wouldn't be a misleading headline, just that it wouldn't make a very good one.  And it's less misleading than the actual headline.


edit-and we can blame the OP, not the author of the article for that

[bore]

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[King]

But Jesus wants a lower a capital gains tax.

[All Along The Watchtower]

and I haven't said it wouldn't be a misleading headline, just that it wouldn't make a very good one.  And it's less misleading than the actual headline.


edit-and we can blame the OP, not the author of the article for that

The actual headline doesn't fit into the character limit. Sorry that you're so offended!

[dead0man]

oh yes, INCREDIBLY offended.  I'm going to write the local paper about it.

[Simfan34]

To be fair, I think that brings up an important point about charity.  The reason Utahans give so much to charity is that Mormons give 10% of their income to the Mormon church.  I think religious charities may account for a good percentage of Republican charitable giving. 

This is the card in the deck that tilts the "charitable giving" statistic in favor of Republicans. It's dishonest once you think about it.

All right, let's just accept this unsubstantiated claim as fact. Thank God we don't have to consider the possibility that Republicans aren't inferior to us progressives in every way!

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

here's an interactive map:
http://philanthropy.com/article/Interactive-Explore-How/149107/#search

The South has high levels of giving.  One place that looks surprisingly low to me is central WI. They're fairly religious, communitarian leaning folk, no?

This is based off of tax returns - I'm not sure how that skews things.