Bleeding Heart Tightwads
Liberals give less to charity than conservatives.
Dec 22nd, 2008 | By Skye Jethani | Category: Culture, Features, Politics‘Tis the season for giving…or not. Contrary to what many believe, it turns out that conservatives and not liberals are the most charitable givers. Nicholas Kristof at The New York Times has a really great op-ed on the subject. Here are a few surprising results from the research.
1. Red states are most likely to give to non-profits, and states in the Northeast are the least likely.
2. European countries give more humanitarian aid per capita than America, but they don’t give as much individually.
3. The least charitable are the French.
4. Gays are one of the most charitable groups in the US.
5. Some of the stingiest in the US are secular conservatives. (I guess they don’t love God or their neighbor.)
6. “If donations to all religious organizations are excluded, liberals give slightly more to charity than conservatives do. But Mr. Brooks says that if measuring by the percentage of income given, conservatives are more generous than liberals even to secular causes.”
7. Liberal donations often go to non-profits that benefit the rich–art museums, symphonies, schools and universities.
8. Conservatives give more blood. (Sounds like a patriotic country song.)
9. The working poor give a higher percentage of their income to charity than the middle class.
Read Kistof’s entire column here.
Makes sense. People give in accordance with their personal philosophy. A liberal sees the poor and destitute and thinks, “The government is failing here, they need to do a better job supporting the poor in society. I need to push for a more compassionate government.” A conservative sees the poor and destitute and thinks, “It’s a shame these people are unable to support themselves, someone needs to help them. I can help them.”
However, these studies always skew towards the ultra-rich because the analysis is based on totals. Total giving vs. total income. So the guy making 10 mill and giving zero is going to influence the numbers a lot more than the guy making $50k and giving away $5k. Is the “average” guy out of those two giving 5% of his income? Or .1%? It all depends where you put the parentheses. So some parts of the study don’t tell us a lot about us average Joe’s giving, unfortunately.
Very interesting about the working poor giving more percentagewise than the middle class. How sad. This fits in with my restaurant experience though - the working class are always the best tippers. Worst tippers? Rich women, teenagers, and the after-church crowd.