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Day And Night
May 24, 2009

by T. Finn
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/244/story/68456.html

quote:

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.

"The lowest-income fifth (of the population) always give at more than their capacity," said Virginia Hodgkinson, former vice president for research at Independent Sector, a Washington-based association of major nonprofit agencies. "The next two-fifths give at capacity, and those above that are capable of giving two or three times more than they give."


Indeed, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest survey of consumer expenditure found that the poorest fifth of America's households contributed an average of 4.3 percent of their incomes to charitable organizations in 2007. The richest fifth gave at less than half that rate, 2.1 percent.

The figures probably undercount remittances by legal and illegal immigrants to family and friends back home, a multibillion-dollar outlay to which the poor contribute disproportionally.

None of the middle fifths of America's households, in contrast, gave away as much as 3 percent of their incomes.

"As a rule, people who have money don't know people in need," saId Tanya Davis, 40, a laid-off security guard and single mother.

Certainly, better-off people aren't hit up by friends and kin as often as Davis said she was, having earned a reputation for generosity while she was working.

Now getting by on $110 a week in unemployment insurance and $314 a month in welfare, Davis still fields two or three appeals a week, she said, and lays out $5 or $10 weekly.

To explain her giving, Davis offered the two reasons most commonly heard in three days of conversations with low-income donors:

"I believe that the more I give, the more I receive, and that God loves a cheerful giver," Davis said. "Plus I've been in their position, and someday I might be again."

Herbert Smith, 31, a Seventh-day Adventist who said he tithed his $1,010 monthly disability check — giving away 10 percent of it — thought that poor people give more because, in some ways, they worry less about their money.

"We're not scared of poverty the way rich people are," he said. "We know how to get the lights back on when we can't pay the electric bill."

In terms of income, the poorest fifth seem unlikely benefactors. Their pretax household incomes averaged $10,531 in 2007, according to the BLS survey, compared with $158,388 for the top fifth.

In addition, its members are the least educated fifth of the U.S. population, the oldest, the most religious and the likeliest to rent their homes, according to demographers. They're also the most likely fifth to be on welfare, to drive used cars or rely on public transportation, to be students, minorities, women and recent immigrants.

However, many of these characteristics predict generosity. Women are more generous than men, studies have shown. Older people give more than younger donors with equal incomes. The working poor, disproportionate numbers of which are recent immigrants, are America's most generous group, according to Arthur Brooks, the author of the book "Who Really Cares," an analysis of U.S. generosity.

Faith probably matters most, Brooks — who's the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington policy-research organization — said in an interview. That's partly because above-average numbers of poor people go to church, and church attenders give more money than non-attenders to secular and religious charities, Brooks found.

Moreover, disproportionate numbers of poor people belong to congregations that tithe.

Less-religious givers such as Emel Sweeney, 73, a retired bookkeeper, say that giving lights up their lives.

"Have you ever looked into the face of someone you're being generous to?" Sweeney asked with the trace of a Jamaican lilt.

That brought to mind her encounter with a young woman who was struggling to manage four small, tired children on a bus.

They staggered and straggled at a transfer stop, along with Sweeney, who urged the mother to take a nearby cab the rest of the way. When the mother said she had no money, Sweeney gave her $20, she said. The mother, as she piled her brood into the cab, waved and mouthed a thank-you.

"Those words just rested in my chest," Sweeney said, "and as I rode home I was so happy."

Pastor Coletta Jones, who ministers to a largely low-income tithing congregation in southeast Washington, The Rock Christian Church, thinks that poor people give more because they ask for less for themselves.

"When you have just a little, you're thankful for what you have," Jones said, "but with every step you take up the ladder of success, the money clouds your mind and gets you into a state of never being satisfied."

Brooks offered this statistic as supportive evidence: Fifty-eight percent of noncontributors with above-median incomes say they don't have enough money to give any away.

What makes poor people's generosity even more impressive is that their giving generally isn't tax-deductible, because they don't earn enough to justify itemizing their charitable tax deductions. In effect, giving a dollar to charity costs poor people a dollar while it costs deduction itemizers 65 cents.

In addition, measures of generosity typically exclude informal giving, such as that of Davis' late mother, Helen Coleman. Coleman, a Baltimore hotel housekeeper, provided child care, beds and meals for many of her eight children and 32 grandchildren, Davis said.

Federal surveys don't ask about remittances specifically, so it's hard to know how much the poorest fifth sends back home. Remittances from U.S. immigrants totaled more than $100 billion in 2007, according to Manuel Orozco, a senior researcher at Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy institute, who specializes in remittances.

By comparison, individual giving to tax-deductible U.S. charities totaled about $220 billion in 2007.


Much of the money remitted comes from struggling U.S. immigrants such as Zenaida Araviza, 42, a Macy's cosmetics clerk and single mother in suburban Arlington, Va.

Araviza, who earns $1,300 a month, goes carless, cable-less and cell phone-less in order to send an aunt in the Philippines $200 a month to care for Araviza's mother, who has Alzheimer's.

"What can I do?" asked Araviza, an attractive, somber woman. "It's my responsibility."

Carmen De Jesus, the chief financial officer and treasurer of Forex Inc., a remittance agency based in Springfield, Va., said low-income Filipino-Americans such as Araviza were her most generous customers.

"The domestic helpers send very, very frequently," she said. "The doctors, less so."

Why are they so generous? Christie Zerrudo, a cashier who handles Filipino remittances at Manila Oriental, a grocery/restaurant/remittance agency in Arlington, offered this explanation:

"It gives the heart comfort when you sit down at the end of the day, and you know that you did your part," Zerrudo said. "You took care of your family. If you eat here, they eat there, too. It would give you stress if they couldn't. But you love them, they are your family, and your love has had an expression."

First of all, eliminate the deductions for donating to charity IMO. So, what was that argument about how a reduction in taxes helps stimulate donations to charities / availability of more jobs?

ladies n gentlemen, welcome to the Republican Party where gently caress you, got mien has become the moral standard while proclaiming to be a god-fearing christian

theres also a graph at the link but i didn' want to hotlink the img so

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story
Mar 5, 2009

Where there is injury, let me sow pardon.
Poor people also give a higher percentage of their income to charity FOR the rich. We just call it taxes though.

Like in philadlephia, they are increasing the sales tax by 1%. Which means the average low income family pays 6% of their income, while the average rich person pays .67% of their income for this tax. Poor people will therefore spend about nine times what the rich will for the same tax. And all our taxes work this way.

DUMBocrat
Oct 24, 2005

by mons all madden
but if rich people had less taxes

Sai
Sep 20, 2004

DUMBocrat posted:

but if rich people had less taxes
qft

Humanist Manifesto
Feb 18, 2009

Death To No One.
Peace Be Unto All.
fuckin beautiful. these are the people i want to spend my life helping.
but then i realize that's america and i can work my rear end off the rest of my life and never get anywhere with helping anybody because rich white people have turned "socialism" into a dirty word.

Day and Night posted:

What makes poor people's generosity even more impressive is that their giving generally isn't tax-deductible, because they don't earn enough to justify itemizing their charitable tax deductions.

i didn't even know there were limits. wtf?

Jonah Galtberg
Feb 11, 2009

This brings back memories of a few years ago when I was doorknocking for the Red Cross; I'd often get told "don't have any money sorry :(" over those intercoms to the front gate rich people have so they don't have to actually deal with the common folk face-to face. I never gave them the response they deserved but drat.

There were exceptions of course but by and large I'd get far more people willing to donate in poorer suburbs than rich ones.

Day And Night posted:

theres also a graph at the link but i didn' want to hotlink the img so

http://waffleimages.com/

stealie72
Jan 10, 2007

Their eyes locked and suddenly there was the sound of breaking glass.
\

TFA posted:

Moreover, disproportionate numbers of poor people belong to congregations that tithe.
This is pretty much what's up. Churches pretty much gently caress up all the stats for giving to charities. For example, if you look at average giving for charities, foundations make up like 10% of the total funding because they generally don't give to churches. If you take churches out of it, you get more like 20+ percent.

My guess is that this would be the same too. My semi-informed breakdown is that the poorest x% give to churches, relatives, and buy a cheesburger for their worse off neighbor. The richest x% give to their alma mater, the hospital that fixed their heart, and the art gallery. Everyone in between gives to everything.

I work for a middle of the road grassroots charity, and the bulk of our support (beyond government contracts and foundation grants) comes $50-100 at a time from middle class families who find out about us at their mainline protestant church.

edit:

Humanist Manifesto posted:

i didn't even know there were limits. wtf?
You have to have a relatively substantial number of deductions (charitable, mortgage interest, etc) to make it worth itemizing them, vs just taking the standard deduction (which is like $6,500-ish for a couple, I think).

stealie72 fucked around with this message at 15:35 on May 26, 2009

Pleasant Friend
Dec 30, 2008

If they didn’t give so much to charity maybe they wouldn’t be so POOR!
:smug:

kylejack
Feb 28, 2006

I'M AN INSUFFERABLE PEDANTIC POMPOUS RACIST TROLL WHO BELIEVES VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM. I SUFFER FROM TERMINAL WHITE GUILT. PLEASE EXPOSE MY LIES OR BETTER YET JUST IGNORE ME!

Humanist Manifesto posted:

i didn't even know there were limits. wtf?
Babby's first tax return?

aryangoku92
Nov 23, 2004

by Lowtax
Widow's mite.

FishBulb
Mar 29, 2003

Marge, I'd like to be alone with the sandwich for a moment.

Are you going to eat it?

...yes...

Humanist Manifesto posted:

i didn't even know there were limits. wtf?

You have no idea how filing your taxes works.

Fortunately for you neither does 90% of the US.

AreWeDrunkYet
Jul 8, 2006

stealie72 posted:

You have to have a relatively substantial number of deductions (charitable, mortgage interest, etc) to make it worth itemizing them, vs just taking the standard deduction (which is like $6,500-ish for a couple, I think).[/i]

Also, the tax benefit from charitable giving is (one minus your marginal tax rate) x (the amount you give). Someone with a lower income has a lower marginal rate, which means less of a tax benefit for charity even if they manage to deduct it.

story
Mar 5, 2009

Where there is injury, let me sow pardon.

Humanist Manifesto posted:

fuckin beautiful. these are the people i want to spend my life helping.
but then i realize that's america and i can work my rear end off the rest of my life and never get anywhere with helping anybody because rich white people have turned "socialism" into a dirty word.

seriouspost there's a lot you can do and no excuse if you aint doin it

edit: where do you live

Humanist Manifesto
Feb 18, 2009

Death To No One.
Peace Be Unto All.

kylejack posted:

Babby's first tax return?

i haven't lived in america even though i have dual citizenship and i've yet to file my first taxes. tbqh a lot of the poo poo america does confuses me and i'm too busy taking poo poo for granted over here to learn about your hosed up system in detail but i'll deal with it eventually when i get there next year so :(

story posted:

seriouspost there's a lot you can do and no excuse if you aint doin it

edit: where do you live

japan

kylejack
Feb 28, 2006

I'M AN INSUFFERABLE PEDANTIC POMPOUS RACIST TROLL WHO BELIEVES VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM. I SUFFER FROM TERMINAL WHITE GUILT. PLEASE EXPOSE MY LIES OR BETTER YET JUST IGNORE ME!

Humanist Manifesto posted:

i haven't lived in america even though i have dual citizenship and i've yet to file my first taxes.
Oh okay, I forgive you then. :)

Whilst farting I
Apr 25, 2006

DUMBocrat posted:

but if rich people had less taxes

Stink Hungry
Jul 22, 2003

You betcha
trickle down economics at work :smug:

Prettz
Sep 3, 2002

Whilst farting I posted:


this is a good response

Shankley
Nov 15, 2005

by Tiny Fistpump
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_charitable_countries

discipline
May 22, 2007
yes, pleb, and you should be grateful they choose to give anything at all away!

Home!
Aug 30, 2008

by The Finn

of course this neglects the Zakat in Islamic countries

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
I've read this a decade or so ago and in Portuguese so I'm having trouble finding any sources to back me up but I'll still mention it because it ties up to this quite neatly.

Some sociologists in Brazil carried out a study in which they'd put a wallet with (fake) personal identification and a contact number along a significant amount of money for someone poor, making it look like some poor shmuck lost the wallet with his monthly pay.
They then dropped several of these wallets in slums and in upper class gated communities. Surprisingly (for the naive that is), the return rate in the poor areas was much higher (more than double if I remember correctly) than in the rich areas. Most of the wallets placed in rich areas were never returned or were returned without all or part of the money.

They speculated that the results stem from the fact that poor people are more empathetic to how much suffering the lack of that money would cause one of their peers while the rich guys didn't give a gently caress about lower class scum.
Who would have guessed... :rolleyes:

Day And Night
May 24, 2009

by T. Finn

MeLKoR posted:

I've read this a decade or so ago and in Portuguese so I'm having trouble finding any sources to back me up but I'll still mention it because it ties up to this quite neatly.

Some sociologists in Brazil carried out a study in which they'd put a wallet with (fake) personal identification and a contact number along a significant amount of money for someone poor, making it look like some poor shmuck lost the wallet with his monthly pay.
They then dropped several of these wallets in slums and in upper class gated communities. Surprisingly (for the naive that is), the return rate in the poor areas was much higher (more than double if I remember correctly) than in the rich areas. Most of the wallets placed in rich areas were never returned or were returned without all or part of the money.

They speculated that the results stem from the fact that poor people are more empathetic to how much suffering the lack of that money would cause one of their peers while the rich guys didn't give a gently caress about lower class scum.
Who would have guessed... :rolleyes:

I read this too.

Brother Aziz
Apr 21, 2009

by Fistgrrl

Home! posted:

of course this neglects the Zakat in Islamic countries

Shocking, I know. At least they decided to let Turkey hang out with the cool white guys.

an adult beverage
Aug 13, 2005

1,2,3,4,5 dem gators don't take no jive. go gator -US Rep. Corrine Brown (D) FL
because poor people have basic human empathy

Day And Night
May 24, 2009

by T. Finn

an adult beverage posted:

because poor people have basic human empathy

there does seem to be an inverse correlation between basic human empathy and the amount of money one possesses but i refuse to believe that as a general rule of thumb

i cant believe it

Brother Aziz
Apr 21, 2009

by Fistgrrl
speaking from experience i make like 10k a year and ive never said no to anyone asking for some money for food, including taking 20 bucks out of the atm for folks -- its less about charity, faith, and any of that as much as it's the crushing, killing hurt and guilt of knowing exactly what that person is going through and being unable to walk away from that and live with yourself if you have any kind of soul. poor people cant close their eyes and turn off the ghetto like rich folks can

story
Mar 5, 2009

Where there is injury, let me sow pardon.

Brother Aziz posted:

poor people cant close their eyes and turn off the ghetto like rich folks can

best line of the morning, time for lunch break

Prettz
Sep 3, 2002

Brother Aziz posted:

speaking from experience i make like 10k a year
do you work as a grocery store bag boy for a living or something?

story
Mar 5, 2009

Where there is injury, let me sow pardon.

Prettz posted:

do you work as a grocery store bag boy for a living or something?

what the gently caress is wrong with you?

Day And Night
May 24, 2009

by T. Finn

Prettz posted:

do you work as a grocery store bag boy for a living or something?

a lot of people make this much a year

youve just highlighted your ignorance

aryangoku92
Nov 23, 2004

by Lowtax
this just in: poor people spend a higher percentage of their income on everything than the rich and if this comes as a surprise to you you're pretty dumb

boxc
Oct 11, 2006

by Ozma
poor people own, gently caress the rich.

true life my EFC(estimated financial contribution) for next school year is 0, i have about 40 dollars in my bank account or something but i gave someone twenty dollars to get home after his car had gotten broken into outside the grocery store i was at last night. he was in town visiting someone in the hospital.

Brother Aziz
Apr 21, 2009

by Fistgrrl

Prettz posted:

do you work as a grocery store bag boy for a living or something?

my father was a crackhead, my mother abandoned me at 13 and I'm recovering from homelessness. Being homeless is like a disease; if you have no family support structure or organized community to pick you back up, you have to overcome it one day at a time and it is a long process even if you do manage to get a roof back over your head.

kylejack
Feb 28, 2006

I'M AN INSUFFERABLE PEDANTIC POMPOUS RACIST TROLL WHO BELIEVES VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM. I SUFFER FROM TERMINAL WHITE GUILT. PLEASE EXPOSE MY LIES OR BETTER YET JUST IGNORE ME!
What type of job do you do? Is it full-time?

an adult beverage
Aug 13, 2005

1,2,3,4,5 dem gators don't take no jive. go gator -US Rep. Corrine Brown (D) FL

Prettz posted:

do you work as a grocery store bag boy for a living or something?

punch yourself in the loving face

Sai
Sep 20, 2004

aryangoku92 posted:

this just in: poor people spend a higher percentage of their income on everything than the rich and if this comes as a surprise to you you're pretty dumb
u are litteraly more dumb than the cat in your avatar

kylejack
Feb 28, 2006

I'M AN INSUFFERABLE PEDANTIC POMPOUS RACIST TROLL WHO BELIEVES VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM. I SUFFER FROM TERMINAL WHITE GUILT. PLEASE EXPOSE MY LIES OR BETTER YET JUST IGNORE ME!
love dat cat

Brother Aziz
Apr 21, 2009

by Fistgrrl

kylejack posted:

What type of job do you do? Is it full-time?

I'm unable to hold a full time job currently because of some pretty bad back injuries but I'm also unable to get disability because I have no ID whatsoever -- No birth certificate, no license (I dont drive), no Social Security, nothing. When I was homeless I had my belongings stolen and it included all of that, and the government has been running me around for about four years now trying to reestablish my identity.

In order to get by, I rented books on computers and taught myself how to program with a second hand computer when I got a room to live in again at a rooming house. I'm unable to get a real programming job because I only own two pairs of clothes and cant afford to do laundry regularly and have no ID to even get past a hiring offer, so I run a small syndicate with people I met online and live off of contract work that is sparse but keeps me fed. Doesn't help I only have a 9th grade education despite my abilities either.

Brother Aziz fucked around with this message at 17:27 on May 26, 2009

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tektronic
Jul 9, 2001

Brother Aziz posted:

my father was a crackhead, my mother abandoned me at 13 and I'm recovering from homelessness. Being homeless is like a disease; if you have no family support structure or organized community to pick you back up, you have to overcome it one day at a time and it is a long process even if you do manage to get a roof back over your head.

good on you man, i didn't have things as bad as you but i can empathize

i can speak from similar experience that you can't dig yourself out of a hole and there's a severe lack of any way to get a hand up from that hole in this country without relatives with means