America's Poor Give The Most To Charity

McClatchy:

WASHINGTON -- When Jody Richards saw a homeless man begging outside a downtown McDonald's recently, he bought the man a cheeseburger. There's nothing unusual about that, except that Richards is homeless, too, and the 99-cent cheeseburger was an outsized chunk of the $9.50 he'd earned that day from panhandling.

The generosity of poor people isn't so much rare as rarely noticed, however. In fact, America's poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show. What's more, their generosity declines less in hard times than the generosity of richer givers does.

Read the whole story: McClatchy

Comments

[LogicNow]

This does not surprise me in the least. I know when I was unemployed recently (for a total of 9 months!!), I found myself giving more $$$ to charity. And now that I am working again, albeit at a 40% reduction in salary, I remember how I felt back then, and I continue to try to give as much as I possibly can, both monetarily and of my time. You can't help but to feel better about yourself when you do.

[motoGpifupleez]

The more you have, the more you see others as trying to take from you.
The beautiful thing is, when one of the rich slugs loses everything, it won't be one of their former "friends" who offers the helping hand, it will be one of the people they used to vilify.

[dm10003]

how much of that is robotic church tithing? out of guilt or peer pressure?

having said that, i am on disability and always consider my pocket change, sometimes my singles, fair game to be given to worthy-looking beggars.

[JulieSA]

I don't care why people give. Guilt or peer pressure? So what? If you belong to a group of peers who give regularly to charity, that's a good kind of peer pressure. If you hang around with misanthropes who never give, that's bad peer pressure.

"Robotic" is kind of an insulting term to describe people who set aside 10% or more of their income automatically. A lot people figure philanthropy as a certain percent of their budget to give every year. They plan for it, so they cut back on other expenses to meet their philanthropic giving goal.

[4real]

That's because they understand how it feels to be in that situation so they are more simpatheic to others.

[cactusgal]

My mother was widowed at a very young age, and she worked two jobs to support my brother and me. We got by on practically nothing, but she contributed to just about every charity, and even fed children in our neighborhood she thought didn't get enough to eat. When she died, almost 300 people turned up at the funeral home. We didn't even know most of them--they were just people to whom she'd shown kindness over the years.

[LDnearthesea]

There are those who make at least six figures a year who won't give a dime to charity. I know of people who hang up the phone if it's a fundraiser on the line. Then they use every tax dodge to pay little or no taxes. Meanwhile I'm constantly getting phone calls from all sorts of organizations wanting $15 or $50 bucks for this or that cause, and I don't have many tax write offs. I give to a few public radio stations and a few other fundraisers for club sports for my former university, and the local public schools. I make $50k a year.

[notAMoron]

If you make 50K a year and you marry someone who makes the same your will be considered "rich." If you notice the cutoff for the top tier is 91K and these things are usually reported in the household level.

[LDnearthesea]

I know of a charity that a quite a few multi-millionaires and billionaires like Clint Eastwood and larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Computers, can contritute: the California State Budget! Raise their state taxes by 5% and revenues would go up quite a bit!

[JulieSA]

Revenues would go up temporarily, then decline.

[blaharumph]

working folk understand empathy...

[EndangeredJackalope]

Nothing new here...

[ellawensmom]

The thing about poor people, and what tends to make them more generous, in my opinion, is that they know what it's like. if I have money today, I'll help you out. When I need help tomorrow, if you have it, you'll help me out. that's just the way it works. I've also noticed there's more humility among the poor and working poor. They'll accept the help because they know they might be helping you out tomorrow.
I'm glad this article is here, and I hope it gets big. When I think of how many times I've been followed around stores by clerks looking like I'm going to rip them off, or had policemen run my plates because my car isn't the best, iw ant every one of them to see this article and rethink their stereotypes about the poor.

[blaharumph]

well said.

[Yasmine]

OBVIOUS, the Poor feel the pain of the Poor.
But the medium rich are not generous because they want to become richerand they feel that they are paying taxes to Gov to spend on the Poor
the SUPER rich become philanthropist..........and they are the true COMMUNISTS

[LDnearthesea]

So what about the two thirds, that is 66% of American corporations that don't pay any Federal Income Taxes for most of the last two decades? They need to cough up some dough and prove their patriotism!

[ohiomark]

Does that include all the lottery tickets they buy to "benefit" schools.

[mathme]

Zing, Mark! Oh, you're on the ball! Take that poor people! Feel the brute force of Mark's scathing stereotype!

Kick them again! Kick them again!

[LDnearthesea]

What's it like being a selfish Repug?

[JohnFromCensornati]

It's a lot like being somebody who h@tes poor people and black people and g@y people and Mexic@n people and female people...

[tora]

The rich didn't get rich by being generous, that's for sure. All my so called wealthy friends are stingy and cheap as hell, they expect other people to pay for them.

[mathme]

When people ask me or I ask my close friends what we would do with lottery winnings, the first thing usually has to do with buying a lot of things for our friends or strangers. My personal dream is to buy a decent car every week or so, nothing really fancy because i wouldn't want to run out of funds, and drive around looking for a family in an old, unsafe car, and trade them.

Rich people are rich because they're good at holding on to their money and finding ways to get more whereas my friends and I look for excuse to give things away.

[LDnearthesea]

I won't buy lottery tickets. There's little chance of winning, and I can think of other ways for states to raise money: start taxing the filthy rich what they should be taxes, and eliminate loopholes and deductions and implement a progressive "flat" tax on incomes with a sliding scale.

[klondiker]

It would be interesting to see what percentage of this goes to churches and other religious organizations.