The Surprisingly Most Generous
by Ashley High

The wealthy business owner that just pledged a couple million to his favorite performing arts center, the billionaires that had a secret meeting…these are the stories of philanthropy that the media most often covers. However, surveys show that America’s poor actually donate more, percentage-wise, than wealthier people.

 

“The lowest-income fifth [of the population] always give more than their capacity,” said Virginia Hodgkinson, former vice president for research at Independent Sector, an association of major nonprofit agencies. Those at the top 1/5 of the population are capable of giving two to three times more than what they do. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the poorest Americans give an average of 4.3% while the richest only give 2.1 percent. These numbers probably do not include the money immigrants send home to family and friends.

 

So who are these people that give so generously even though their yearly income averages only to $10,531? They “are the least educated fifth of the U.S. population, the oldest, the most religious […] 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, or recent immigrants.” They’re people like Jody Richards, a homeless man who spent 10% of his daily earnings from begging to buy a hamburger for another homeless man. They’re people like Zenaida Araviza, a single mother who works at Macys, who goes carless, cable-less, and cell phone-less in order to send $200 a month to the Philippines to support her mother.

 

Tanya Davis, a laid-off security guard and single mother, explains she gives because God loves a cheerful giver; “plus, I’ve been in [a needy] position, and someday I might be again.” Finally, Herbert Smith, a man who tithes 10% of his $1,010 monthly disability check, says he thinks 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.”

 

Information taken from: Frank Greve. “America’s Poor are Its Most Generous Givers.” Centre Daily Times. <centredaily.com>.

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