Why do the poorest give more to charity than the richest?

[kyser_soze]

Cos poor people are all great and rich people are cunts.

Does this make me a fully paid up member of Urban's monothought clique now?

 

[gorski]

Dunno, if that's the case for all but I am... poor and great...

 

[ymu]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/aug/04/workandcareers.executivesalaries

Aye. Lots of insight in that extract. I'm gonna cut'n'paste the bits I was going to post anyway, because people don't always read bare links with no explanation - and because it directly answers some of the posts here.

Is there any evidence that poor people give more than rich people?

As a proportion of income - yes there is.

It is true that the larger a household's annual income, the more likely the household will give money to charity. Half the households in the top 10% of the income distribution make charitable donations, but only one in six of the bottom 10%. But there is a twist in the figures. The worse off give proportionately more of their income. The top fifth of households give less than 1% of their total income, while the poorest 10th give three times as much, or 3% of their income.

@ OP, because they are closer to it and therefore can empathise/sympathise more. Big Issue sellers do better in poorer areas than wealthy areas too I have had reported. Wealthy people either don't understand how people can be so poor, or don't understand why they don't just work themselves out of poverty like they did.

They don't seem to even have a concept of being poor ...

How much, we asked our group, would it take to put someone in the top 10% of earners? They put the figure at £162,000. In fact, in 2007 it was around £39,825, the point at which the top tax band began. Our group found it hard to believe that nine-tenths of the UK's 32m taxpayers earned less than that. As for the poverty threshold, our lawyers and bankers fixed it at £22,000. But that sum was just under median earnings, which meant they regarded ordinary wages as poverty pay.

...

They could scarcely deny they had money; indeed they spoke of the pleasures that high incomes bought. "I do enjoy the fact I can have nice holidays and don't think twice about buying particular items," said one lawyer. But most blocked out the suggestion they were extremely well off. Living in London cost a lot, they said: the city that made them rich was a reason you had to be rich. You had to afford London property. "I'm sick of this, because with £100,000 in Manchester you are well off; £100,000 is a not a wealthy person down here."

A lawyer admitted that he couldn't imagine surviving on an income as low as £100,000, and in discussions about higher tax bands his colleagues objected to any such low sum being used as a benchmark.

People that have had limited means can do too. Just cos you improve your situation doesn't mean you forget your past. Weird concept for U75 prolly, fucks with stereotyping people.

Sure, but the rapid increase in income inequality is rapidly creating a bubble from which the rich never emerge, and the poor rarely enter.

"Providing for children" was flourished as a trump card, as if spending on offspring were automatically moral and good, regardless of how other people's children fare.

"I work hard, I've got two boys and I want to provide for them." Providing for children meant buying them access to high-earning jobs, taking trusted routes through school and university. One result of such social selection is already being seen on the City's doorstep. Applicants at this law firm are "becoming posher", a senior partner noted. Older partners were often grammar school, but now recruits almost exclusively have been to private schools. They are also greedier: the same older partner said he was shocked that the first question high-flying graduates ask now is about the salary.

 

[Aldebaran]

People of limited means have more empathy for others of limited means because they know that the cards are stacked against anyone of limited means.

And probably an other fair amount become too self-centered to care about others. Especially when they manage to climb up a bit in theincome range.

Some of the rich, on the other hand, are not aware how difficult it is from limited means to reach a more comfortable state.

That depends first of all on how you are raised and secondly on how you want to look onto the world once you are able to explore it.
Since I was a little kid I heard reference made to "the new rich" with a mix of amusement and disdain. Later I learned that it was aimed at people born less fortunate but who somehow managed to gather some financial status and never let escape an opportunity to let it be known. Yet they missed the upbringing, the background, the history and sense of dignity and responsibility that comes with all that.
Often enough you see this even more reflected in the behaviour of their children. It is that what in my experience catches the eye, and it is a very bad representation of what "rich" really means because they have no clue how to be rich, and no idea that it is not money that makes a human, but it is the human that makes the person. And that we were all born naked and totally dependent.

It makes my blood boil when I hear people say "well if they just work hard enough..."

This is a typical argument of the defeated.

salaam.

 

[ymu]

I defend you a fair bit around here Alde, but with posts like that you deserve every but of shit you get. You arrogant, ignorant fool.

 

[avu9lives]

Why the assumption it has to be money contribution, who gives their time? or experience or other.

 

[Aldebaran]

I defend you a fair bit around here Alde, but with posts like that you deserve every but of shit you get. You arrogant, ignorant fool.

?

Which "posts like that"?

salaam.

 

[ymu]

Why the assumption it has to be money contribution, who gives their time? or experience or other.

Yeah - we've got shedloads of charity shops around here and every single one of them is staffed by the super-rich donating some time back to the community.

 

[ymu]

?

Which "posts like that"?

salaam.

The one immediately above the one I replied to - otherwise I would have quoted you to make it clear.

 

[Aldebaran]

Why the assumption it has to be money contribution, who gives their time? or experience or other.

Because obviously in the Consumer Society money represent consuming and if you give away from your money you can't consume it and threfore you deprive yourself of the infinite joy consuming represents.

Time is just time. Experience is just experience. There is no consuming missed.

salaam.

 

[Aldebaran]

The one immediately above the one I replied to - otherwise I would have quoted you to make it clear.

Which part of it you don't see what I mean?

salaam.

 

[snadge]

Because obviously in the Consumer Society money represent consuming and if you give away from your money you can't consume it and threfore you deprive yourself of the infinite joy consuming represents.

Time is just time. Experience is just experience. There is no consuming missed.

salaam.

LOL, you been on the piss Aldebaran?

 

[Aldebaran]

LOL, you been on the piss Aldebaran?

It's called sarcasm. I'm also rather cynical.

salaam.

 

[avu9lives]

Because obviously in the Consumer Society money represent consuming and if you give away from your money you can't consume it and threfore you deprive yourself of the infinite joy consuming represents.

Time is just time. Experience is just experience. There is no consuming missed.

salaam.

Rubbish now theres the end product

uncle sam

salam

 

[ymu]

Which part of it you don't see what I mean?

salaam.

I see exactly what you mean. That is what makes you an arrogant, ignorant fool.

 

[Aldebaran]

I see exactly what you mean. That is what makes you an arrogant, ignorant fool.

As long as you can't explain why you make such strange posts you haven't much of a case to make.
I described situations you can see in front of you every day when you open a tabloid. I don' need to open or read UK tabloids to see examples. Live.

Here is some help: Are you one of the "new rich" that you feel yourself targeted or what is it?

salaam.

 

[Aldebaran]

Rubbish now theres the end product

The reason people read tabloids about people who have more money than they do and can't resist showing that to all who wants to see it, is that such people so obviously consume much more rubbish than they can consume.
I think there must be an amount of consumerist based envy involved to get yourself wasting valuable time of your life on what strangers you never met and will never meet do.

salaam.

 

[gorski]

Sometimes he can be "fun", ymu... But lately I just ignore his "mystificating" nonsense and cynicism, altogether...

 

[Riklet]

Who says the poorest do? Is this a worldwide average, or a nationwide average, or a "poor/rich people I know" average...?

Surely it depends on the individual, and their personal generosity, or rather views on dishing out. Considering the amount some extremely wealthy individuals give, if there's any sort of average being done with the "rich 'uns" and "poor 'uns" groups in mind (whatever they are...) then such donations running into the billions must ballance things out? Then you have to factor in the very wealthy, or even the moderately wealthy who aren't obsessing about their income, and merely give because they want to... maybe anonymously, maybe not.

Likewise, with the "poor", there are people giving anonymously, people donating a substantial portion of their income to causes etc etc. I assume this is what you view as relevant; the percentage of income received which is being given to help others. But then... you have to factor in a whole lot more complexities. Maybe the uber-super-rich off in their own world aren't so aware of groups and charities helping others... then again,maybe not, but it seems a bit of a jump to move to the "they're rich cos they're greedy cunts" mentality, or worthy of blame cos of supposed lack of generosity.

What about if.... effectiveness of donation, vs generosity of donation is weighed up? Some rich people might be giving huge sums which are wasted, and some poor might be giving smaller amounts which help enormously in day-to-day small projects. If you presume both have good intentions, is the rich-y better still, cos they've given "more"? Or you can flip reverse it, and say no matter if a poor person is giving a hugely generous proportion of what they earn, if most of it is getting lost along the way, taxed, caught up in bureaucracy, does it compare to an extremely wealthy person giving a fairly small amount, but distributed more effectively thus making a bigger difference.

Really, it's impossible to ever come to a realistic answer in many of these cases. To me, the virtues of charity are pretty hard to suss; everyone has different reasons really. Whether the effectiveness of donation, amount given or intention of giving take priority however, in solving some overall "pattern" of rich vs. poor is another matter, and in the end is inevitably gona be built upon stereotypes and generalisations. Very feel good...

Apologies for the ramble!

 

[Jonti]

... "the new rich" ... [have] missed the upbringing, the background, the history and sense of dignity and responsibility that comes with [financial status]

Shades of Plato's Republic!

Trouble is, this is no longer true, not in contemporary Britain. The UK has long departed from the traditions of patrician Toryism or, more generally, of "noblesse oblige". As the information posted by ymu here shows, the wealthy and powerful in business and government are now profoundly ignorant of how the rest of us live.

Consequently, they no longer have any sense of responsibility. Indeed, no conception of how their behaviour affects ordinary people.

Worse, in their ignorance and selfishness our political and economic masters increasingly behave as if they hate and fear the ordinary folk.

So we've seen any notion of "noblesse oblige" replaced by predatory capitalism ("greed is good") and the widespread criminalisation of ordinary folk. Under these circumstances, the brash "nouveaux riche" who breaks into the multi-millionaire classes is more likely to be seen as a progressive force.

 

[Roxy641]

I think the poor give more money because we know from
personal experience that life isn't as black and white as
people try and tell you. Long before I became unemployed
for the first time, I had to listen to people that have never
never experienced poverty in their life try to convince people
that "they could get a job if they wanted to". Even then I
knew they were just speaking BS.

Roxy641

Apparently those who have least materially are more likely to give of what little they have than those with more materially. Your thoughts on this, if you want to share them?

 

[ada]

I think there's also 'giving norms' operating.

That is, people have a general impression of what is a 'reasonable' amount of cash to give (or rather, a reasonable range); and this norm doesn't vary as much as income levels themselves vary.

So, imagine that most people share the idea that, if you're going to donate at all, there's no point donating less than £10 per month to a cause. And at the other extreme, that donating more than £100 per month to a specific cause seems like an awful lot of cash. That's a ten-fold variation in cash amounts. At the same time, the UK income distribution is that the richest 10% of people have about fifteen times as much income as the poorest tenth. Then you would find that the poorest people give out relatively more (proportionately) of their income than the richest people, although in cash terms of course the richest people give a larger amount absolute money.

That's roughly the situation in the UK - the guardian article cited earlier gives these figures:

The breakdown reveals that those with an annual income below £5,000 give an average of almost 4.5% to good causes, but that the proportion falls the higher the income. People earning £40,000 or more donate just over 2% to charity.

I've never seen any UK research that backs up my theory, but there is some evidence from the Netherlands: http://www.springerlink.com/content/h100nx4116751711/

 

[Stanley Edwards]

Totally haven't read any of this beyond the OP. Will do later.

It's all about empathy if you take the OP literally. You shouldn't. The rich give far more in financial terms.

Just a few days ago I watched someone eagerly entertain the kids from the orphanage for a full hour unpaid. Making giant bubbles - his usual trick to feed expensive habits. But, he was more than happy (that's MORE than happy) to do it for free even though he was craving.

The rich give to ease a conscience and get a tax break. The poor do it because they know how it feels.

Watching someone financially desperate give time to make fun for very disadvantaged children is watching something very beautiful. Smack head, alcoholic, call him what you will, but don't ever accuse him of not giving to society from the heart.

It costs nothing to give a bit of care and attention. Nothing. But, far to many want to just pay for others to do the good stuff. Far to many.

I may be a fucking hippie, but why have so many people forgotten that a smile and a hug is worth more than anything money can buy?

 

[Al Kahul]

I used to work for a charity that collected second hand furniture, for resale to those people who couldn't even afford to buy first hand furniture, let alone give it away when they didn't want it. When many of the people that we'd sold items to, for £10 up to about £100, had finished with their furniture, it only went one way and that was to the tip.

And yet, do you know what? They would be the people who would give you tea and biscuits. And try and tip you after you'd delivered their wardrobe, even though the fucking thing was falling apart. Poor people understand what its like to do shit jobs for no money mostly, or they used to. Similarly, people from lower income bands feel some empathy which i think is sadly lacking from many aspirational members of our society today.

The rich are getting rich and the poor are getting shat on..... its a life long story unfortunately, but you look after your own at the end of the day imo night

I used to work for one of those too -it was in stockwell- actually I can't take any credit because I was doing 100 hours community service .

anyway back to the point -when I was on the dole I gace fuck all to anyone who wasn't likley to reciprocate .Now I am well of I am on several charity committees and spend tonnes of time on this or that Bon Opus

 

[soulman]

Who says the poorest do? Is this a worldwide average, or a nationwide average, or a "poor/rich people I know" average...?

Surely it depends on the individual, and their personal generosity, or rather views on dishing out. Considering the amount some extremely wealthy individuals give, if there's any sort of average being done with the "rich 'uns" and "poor 'uns" groups in mind (whatever they are...) then such donations running into the billions must ballance things out? Then you have to factor in the very wealthy, or even the moderately wealthy who aren't obsessing about their income, and merely give because they want to... maybe anonymously, maybe not.

Likewise, with the "poor", there are people giving anonymously, people donating a substantial portion of their income to causes etc etc. I assume this is what you view as relevant; the percentage of income received which is being given to help others. But then... you have to factor in a whole lot more complexities. Maybe the uber-super-rich off in their own world aren't so aware of groups and charities helping others... then again,maybe not, but it seems a bit of a jump to move to the "they're rich cos they're greedy cunts" mentality, or worthy of blame cos of supposed lack of generosity.

What about if.... effectiveness of donation, vs generosity of donation is weighed up? Some rich people might be giving huge sums which are wasted, and some poor might be giving smaller amounts which help enormously in day-to-day small projects. If you presume both have good intentions, is the rich-y better still, cos they've given "more"? Or you can flip reverse it, and say no matter if a poor person is giving a hugely generous proportion of what they earn, if most of it is getting lost along the way, taxed, caught up in bureaucracy, does it compare to an extremely wealthy person giving a fairly small amount, but distributed more effectively thus making a bigger difference.

Really, it's impossible to ever come to a realistic answer in many of these cases. To me, the virtues of charity are pretty hard to suss; everyone has different reasons really. Whether the effectiveness of donation, amount given or intention of giving take priority however, in solving some overall "pattern" of rich vs. poor is another matter, and in the end is inevitably gona be built upon stereotypes and generalisations. Very feel good...

Apologies for the ramble!

And my apologies for the delay in replying. No the opening question isn't based on any stats as such. Although it could probably be proved by those damn statistics somehow. It was more the feeling that the poorest materially are more likely to give to those in need, than those who have and strive for more materially.

As mentioned empathy maybe

 

[fela fan]

the more you have the less you give.

the less you have the more you give.

Most rich people long ago lost sight of the glories of life. They're too obsessed over the banknotes in life.

Having said that, some of the very best people i've met are wealthy, but learned how to enjoy it rather than on the constant search for accumulating more.