Conservatives More Charitable Than Liberals

[D2112]

Bleeding Heart Tightwads

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: December 20, 2008
This holiday season is a time to examine who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but I’m unhappy with my findings. The problem is this: We liberals are personally stingy.

Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates.

Arthur Brooks, the author of a book on donors to charity, “Who Really Cares,” cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an even greater disproportion: average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals.

Other research has reached similar conclusions. The “generosity index” from the Catalogue for Philanthropy typically finds that red states are the most likely to give to nonprofits, while Northeastern states are least likely to do so.

The upshot is that Democrats, who speak passionately about the hungry and homeless, personally fork over less money to charity than Republicans — the ones who try to cut health insurance for children.

“When I started doing research on charity,” Mr. Brooks wrote, “I expected to find that political liberals — who, I believed, genuinely cared more about others than conservatives did — would turn out to be the most privately charitable people. So when my early findings led me to the opposite conclusion, I assumed I had made some sort of technical error. I re-ran analyses. I got new data. Nothing worked. In the end, I had no option but to change my views.”

Something similar is true internationally. European countries seem to show more compassion than America in providing safety nets for the poor, and they give far more humanitarian foreign aid per capita than the United States does. But as individuals, Europeans are far less charitable than Americans.

Americans give sums to charity equivalent to 1.67 percent of G.N.P., according to a terrific new book, “Philanthrocapitalism,” by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green. The British are second, with 0.73 percent, while the stingiest people on the list are the French, at 0.14 percent.

(Looking away from politics, there’s evidence that one of the most generous groups in America is gays. Researchers believe that is because they are less likely to have rapacious heirs pushing to keep wealth in the family.)

When liberals see the data on giving, they tend to protest that conservatives look good only because they shower dollars on churches — that a fair amount of that money isn’t helping the poor, but simply constructing lavish spires.

It’s true that religion is the essential reason conservatives give more, and religious liberals are as generous as religious conservatives. Among the stingiest of the stingy are secular conservatives.

According to Google’s figures, 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.

In any case, if conservative donations often end up building extravagant churches, liberal donations frequently sustain art museums, symphonies, schools and universities that cater to the well-off. (It’s great to support the arts and education, but they’re not the same as charity for the needy. And some research suggests that donations to education actually increase inequality because they go mostly to elite institutions attended by the wealthy.)

Conservatives also appear to be more generous than liberals in nonfinancial ways. People in red states are considerably more likely to volunteer for good causes, and conservatives give blood more often. If liberals and moderates gave blood as often as conservatives, Mr. Brooks said, the American blood supply would increase by 45 percent.

So, you’ve guessed it! This column is a transparent attempt this holiday season to shame liberals into being more charitable. Since I often scold Republicans for being callous in their policies toward the needy, it seems only fair to reproach Democrats for being cheap in their private donations. What I want for Christmas is a healthy competition between left and right to see who actually does more for the neediest.

Of course, given the economic pinch these days, charity isn’t on the top of anyone’s agenda. Yet the financial ability to contribute to charity, and the willingness to do so, are strikingly unrelated. Amazingly, the working poor, who have the least resources, somehow manage to be more generous as a percentage of income than the middle class.

So, even in tough times, there are ways to help. Come on liberals, redeem yourselves, and put your wallets where your hearts are.

Link (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html?_r=1&em)

[Bowser]

Yeah, but the cons will make you feel guilty for taking their money.

:Poke:

[tiptap]

Indulgences. Yes I can buy the stairway to heaven. That's my conclusion and I am sticking by it.

[D2112]

Yeah, but the cons will make you feel guilty for taking their money.

:Poke:

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[banyon]

There's nothing that says holidays like taking partisan political shots.

So, if billionaires give a large contribution, is that amount imputed to the remaining pct. of conservatives and then re-averaged per capita? Or is there a breakdown by bracket, which there doesn't seem to be. Shocking when your conclusion was drawn out beforehand and the data was sought to match that conclusion.

[D2112]

There's nothing that says holidays like taking partisan political shots.

So, if billionaires give a large contribution, is that amount imputed to the remaining pct. of conservatives and then re-averaged per capita? Or is there a breakdown by bracket, which there doesn't seem to be. Shocking when your conclusion was drawn out beforehand and the data was sought to match that conclusion.

Is this an opening statement, counselor?

Are you insinuating that most Conservatives are ultra rich and most liberals are middle class?

[banyon]

Is this an opening statement, counselor?

Are you insinuating that most Conservatives are ultra rich and most liberals are middle class?

No, exactly the opposite, most ultra rich are conservatives. I'm just guessing that if this was a per capita study, it was done by survey, and they just took the aggregate amount of donations and imputed it to the conservative survey takers.

It's like if you, I, and Bill Gates (a liberal, sort of) were all in a room and I asked how much you pay in taxes. And I said see, per capita, between me and Bill, and you, the liberals pay way more than you conservatives ever thought about paying.

[BucEyedPea]

I do graphics for a philantropy group and there are statistics on this. But the most common givers are those in the $50-70k income bracket. They give in smaller amounts but they give more often. So they are targeted for donations by charity groups. There's a lot more of them than the bigger donors. But they are generous commisserate with their incomes.

[headsnap]

Yeah, but the cons will make you feel guilty for taking their money.

:Poke:

uh, yes...


I'd rather give it than have it TAKEN from me!

[Laz]

it's from all the guilt about being such bastiges. :D


the rest of us are nice all the time

[whoman69]

Repost for the 50th time.

[Mr. Kotter]

Repost for the 50th time.

The truth hurts, doesn't it? :shrug:


Merry Christmas, Scrooge.

;)

[LOCOChief]

This must be a repost, no new news here.

[Mr. Kotter]

This must be a repost, no new news here.

Yup. Notice the deafening silence on this thread. Heh.

I mean, most liberals are chomping at the bit to spend everyone else's money; yet when it comes to their own....they are less than generous.

We really shouldn't be surprised though, eh? :shrug:

Merry Christmas. :thumb:

[Garcia Bronco]

I am conservative on some issues and liberal on others.
This has been a big year for donations
Just this year I have donated:

500 to the local United Way
A car worth 10 grand to family that needed one
New cloths through Angel Tree
Furniture and cloths to Good Will worth 1500
And a brand new scooter purchased for my mother, who passed away on the day it was delivered (The scooter store wouldn't take it back). It's worth about 2000 grand

So roughly 14,000

Obviously some of these are from my mother passing away. I normally do Angel Tree and the United Way.

[Mr. Kotter]

I am conservative on some issues and liberal on others.
This has been a big year for donations
Just this year I have donated:

500 to the local United Way
A car worth 10 grand to family that needed one
New cloths through Angel Tree
Furniture and cloths to Good Will worth 1500
And a brand new scooter purchased for my mother, who passed away on the day it was delivered (The scooter store wouldn't take it back). It's worth about 2000 grand

So roughly 14,000

Obviously some of these are from my mother passing away. I normally do Angel Tree and the United Way.

Bravo, Garcia. :clap:

[Garcia Bronco]

Bravo, Garcia. :clap:

Thanks.

The family that got the car were floored. It is a 2003 Camry -leather, heated seats, sun roof, alloy wheels, 6 disc changer. Another thing I forgot to add is the family has a relative that has the same problem my mother had. My mother worked until her last day. She already had a scooter with the lift on the back. The family needed and got this as well.

[jidar]

trying to buy their way into heaven.

[Garcia Bronco]

I forgot about this as well. It doesn't really count from me or my mother personally, but my mother also had 20k donated in her name to habitat for humanity in Virginia. Pretty sweet as well. Wish I had my mom still though.

[Garcia Bronco]

trying to buy their way into heaven.

Don't be that guy. People that donate to their churches are not "buying their way into heaven". Because everyone knows you can't get there that way

[jidar]

Don't be that guy. People that donate to their churches are "buying their way into heaven". Because everyone knows you can't get there that way

I can't take it seriously as charity regardless.

[Garcia Bronco]

I can't take it seriously as charity regardless.

Then you don't know what they do. Some might be exactly as you described, but the majority in my experiences are not. I mean did the money donated to my church in Virginia, that sent me and group on mission work to help Katrina victims. some how lose it's serious generosity?

A church you know is a good place to donate money. Another great place is the United Way. You can designate where the money goes. Depending on the location, the overhead on ever dollar spent should be in 15 cents range.

[banyon]

Then you don't know what they do. Some might be exactly as you described, but the majority in my experiences are not. I mean did the money donated to my church in Virginia, that sent me and group on mission work to help Katrina victims. some how lose it's serious generosity?

A church you know is a good place to donate money. Another great place is the United Way. You can designate where the money goes. Depending on the location, the overhead on ever dollar spent should be in 15 cents range.

I think most churches do good work with the donations they are given. There are just a few that have probably soured him.

[Garcia Bronco]

I think most churches do good work with the donations they are given. There are just a few that have probably soured him.

Lord knows they are out there. Anyone remember Jim Baker?

[Adept Havelock]

Lord knows they are out there. Anyone remember Jim Baker?

Yep. Was it Oral Roberts who was claiming God would knock him off...er..."call him home" if his supporters didn't fork over 8 million bucks?


Thankfully, there are some good ones like "Fundamentally Oral Bill", and his staunch stance against the evils of Penguin Lust!

[Saul Good]

I think most churches do good work with the donations they are given. There are just a few that have probably soured him.

He's not soured. He's intentionally disparaging the those whos deeds and actions make him feel inadequate by comparison in order to feel better about himself.

[Iowanian]

Oh now.

Liberals are very charitable.....with other people's money.


I'm not suprised to hear the salary ranges of the middle class are better "givers" than the poor(obviously) and the wealthy. Many of the middle class have struggled themselves at some point, and when they get a little more comfortable, are sympathetic to those in need.

[banyon]

Oh now.

Liberals are very charitable.....with other people's money.


I'm not suprised to hear the salary ranges of the middle class are better "givers" than the poor(obviously) and the wealthy. Many of the middle class have struggled themselves at some point, and when they get a little more comfortable, are sympathetic to those in need.

Plus,a lot of them aren't living paycheck to paycheck and have more disposable income, right?

[Darth CarlSatan]

Link (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html?_r=1&em)

Hey! I was wondering if this annual Limbaugh Gem would be making the rounds this year!!!

No, your piece doesn't quote Rush, but it's one of his faaaaaavvvorites!:D

Conservatives are like the monthly safety meeting at my old job with the KCMO water dept; you've seen and heard all of the material 6 times before, so you just tune it out and take a nap when the safety officer throws in the DVD, turns off the lights, and leaves the room.

In other news, David Allen Greer hasn't lost a step!

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[Cannibal]

I am conservative on some issues and liberal on others.
This has been a big year for donations
Just this year I have donated:

500 to the local United Way
A car worth 10 grand to family that needed one
New cloths through Angel Tree
Furniture and cloths to Good Will worth 1500
And a brand new scooter purchased for my mother, who passed away on the day it was delivered (The scooter store wouldn't take it back). It's worth about 2000 grand

So roughly 14,000

Obviously some of these are from my mother passing away. I normally do Angel Tree and the United Way.

Very generous of you. Most people with some amount of class don't usually point to others out how much they give though because they don't seek attention about it.

[triple]

of course.

conservatives are willing to give their own money. liberals want to spend everyone else's

[Darth CarlSatan]

Lord knows they are out there. Anyone remember Jim Baker?

Yes!

I had him sign over( in blood )the wasted remnants of "Heritage USA" to me;

SatanLand opens this fall! Be there!:evil:

[jAZ]

I'm pretty sure this is a re-post. I know it's dated 2008, but I think this exact article was posted last year with identical quotes.

I also believe we concluded that part of the "charity" was went to religious prostylitizing.

[Garcia Bronco]

Very generous of you. Most people with some amount of class don't usually point to others out how much they give though because they don't seek attention about it.

I didn't start the thread, Carl. I merely added in to explain to people that I am both conservative and liberal. But thanks for trying to make what my family did as some sort of negative thing. If it somehow makes you feel bad, sorry.

[WilliamTheIrish]

What a shit article.

[Cannibal]

I didn't start the thread, Carl. I merely added in to explain to people that I am both conservative and liberal. But thanks for trying to make what my family did as some sort of negative thing. If it somehow makes you feel bad, sorry.

It's not negative, it's positive and I think you did a good thing and I congratulate you. But you shouldn't go around announcing it to the world. It looks like an attention ploy for your generosity.

[Ultra Peanut]

Conservatives also like to re-post this article and countless others like it over and over again, and avoid living up to their bets.

D2112 is a tool.

[Garcia Bronco]

It's not negative, it's positive and I think you did a good thing and I congratulate you. But you shouldn't go around announcing it to the world. It looks like an attention ploy for your generosity.

Like I said, most of that stuff is from my mother passing away the week before Thanksgiving. Normally I just do angel tree and United Way. I don't think Charity is a liberal-conservative thing. People give because they can or want too.

[Garcia Bronco]

D2112 is a tool.

Then it would seem you have company.

[tiptap]

Are Christians Stingy?
When believers don't believe in giving.


The run-up to Christmas, with its street-corner Salvation Army kettles and church food drives, would seem a lousy time to find out that Christian charity in America is not what it's supposed to be. But in the recently released Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don't Give Away More Money, sociologists Christian Smith, Michael O. Emerson, and Patricia Snell argue that too many American Christians—"the most affluent single group of Christians in two thousand years of church history"—are guilty of Scrooge-like stinginess. At least one in five American Christians, they write, gives no money at all to charities. In some churches, the miserliness rate is even higher. More than 28 percent of Catholics, for example, don't donate to charity. Bah, humbug, indeed.

Not surprisingly, numbers of that kind left some Christian commentators dismayed. "Scrooge Lives," proclaimed the December Christianity Today in a cover story about tight-fisted Christians. "The level of self-centered materialism described here is truly staggering," wrote one reviewer. "The book should drive us to our knees."

But are Christians really so stingy? Looked at comparatively, Christians could be commended for their relative generosity instead of rebuked as misers. Their charitable giving stacks up pretty well against that of nonbelievers, who appear to be even tighter with their charitable dollars. More than half of nonreligious Americans contributed no money or property to charity, according to Passing the Plate, and the percentage of income donated to charity by the average nonbeliever was less than 1 percent, compared with nearly 3 percent for American Christians. And some categories of Christians distinguished themselves as givers. The average evangelical Protestant, for example, gave a sturdy 8.2 percent of annual income, according to surveys cited in the book.

Financial matters are so deeply ingrained in church life that it's no surprise that faith-based giving—and particularly the lack of it—would be a hot topic. Responsibility for the needy and the obligation to help the church do good work in the world are fundamental Christian precepts. Collection plates and sermons about stewardship are staples of the churchgoing experience, and the pleas for money only increase as Christmas approaches. Yet even when Christians do give generously, their money doesn't always make it to charitable causes. Most of the money gathered in churches on Sunday is spent inside those same churches on operating expenses likes staff salaries and facility maintenance. The authors of Passing the Plate write that "the vast majority of the money that American Christians do give to religion is spent in and for their own local communities of faith—little is spent on missions, development and poverty relief outside of local congregations."

Raising money has been a preoccupation of American church leaders from the start. It became especially urgent after churches were disestablished as organs of the state, cutting them off from public support. (The last state to disestablish its official church was Massachusetts, which cut its ties with the Congregational Church in 1833.) In the wave of diversification and privatization that followed, churches found themselves competing for believers—and their money. Some churches raised funds by renting pews to worshippers; others imposed property taxes. Every generation of church leadership seemed to introduce its own fundraising innovations. The collection envelope, introduced in the late 19th-century church, promised to promote regular giving. The Catholic parish of my childhood subsisted in part on bingo nights and pancake breakfasts. Churches are still innovating today, with some installing ATM-like "giving kiosks" that allow worshippers to donate by swiping debit or credit cards on their way into church—charge your donation and earn bonus air miles!

Despite all the exhortations, though, it seems that relatively few Christians—even those who give regularly—have followed church teachings on exactly how much to give. Most American Christians belong to churches that promote tithing—giving 10 percent of income to the church. Tithing's roots extend back to the Old Testament commandment to give one-tenth of agricultural produce as a sacred offering. Though it's often associated with conservative and evangelical Protestant churches, tithing is also taught, for example, in the more liberal Episcopal Church, which teaches members "to practice tithing as a minimum standard of giving." Yet fewer than one in 10 Christians gives as much as a tithe of their income. The 2.9 percent of income given by the average Christian may seem reasonably generous, but it falls significantly short of what many Christian churches desire.

If tithing is so widely taught, why is it so seldom practiced? In his history In Pursuit of the Almighty's Dollar, James Hudnut-Beumler argues that preaching tithing was one of a series of rhetorical strategies pastors developed in the 19th century—a "rhetoric of righteousness" that aimed to inspire and compel giving by believers. But then and now, most Christians have been unmoved by the command to tithe. Some reject the practice as legalistic or coercive or based on a flawed understanding of the Bible. Smith, Emerson, and Snell report that 76 percent of churchgoing Christians in one study said they wouldn't tithe even if required to by their church. Fifty-nine percent thought that a church has no right to ask its members to give specific amounts of money.

The resistance to tithing is just one indication of the distance between pulpit and pew on financial matters. According to Passing the Plate, one reason Christians don't give more is that "they lack a complete confidence in the trustworthiness of the churches" to which they donate. In one study, more than half of Lutherans, Presbyterians, Catholics, and Baptists said that they lacked confidence in the "handling and allocation of funds" by leaders of their denomination.

They might have more confidence if they had more say in how those funds are spent. Directing churchgoers' donations toward maintaining their own church buildings may be part of the problem. Paying the heating bill may be necessary, but it's not the sort of cause likely to inspire great generosity. On the other hand, the Chicago Tribune recently reported on one congregation that pledges to direct all the money it collects at church services to charitable causes—sponsors cover basic church expenses. The church's Web site even solicits suggestions on how the congregation's money should be spent. Part of what makes that approach intriguing is that it allows churchgoers to follow the money they put in the collection plate and focuses their giving on the world beyond the church walls. It's more about inspiring giving than requiring giving.

American churches have always had a talent for innovating new ways to open wallets, to yoke the material to the sacred. Eighteenth-century evangelist George Whitefield was called a "peddler of divinity" by one of his contemporaries. Never more than in a consumerist society, making the case for giving puts pastors and preachers in something like a salesman's role. But the numbers suggest that too many of the people in the pews aren't buying the pitch. Maybe today's stingy Christians are really just dissatisfied customers.
Andrew Santella's essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review and GQ.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2207176/

[Garcia Bronco]

So 72 percent of Christians give to Charity? That's an amazing percentage. Provided the number is at all accurate. Which I doubt it is. Also the article says "Non-believers" give even less. So IMO, the title doesn't fit it's own story. Also...amazing.

[tiptap]

Liberal vs. Conservative Giving

Arthur Brooks' book, Who Really Cares, is of course finding quite a bit of use as yet another rhetorical bludgeon to use against liberals. Conservatives give more to "the poor" than the hypocritical liberals who always preach against the wealth of the GOP.

Of course, giving to churches counts as "charitable" giving in this country, when it is nothing of the sort. Common congregational practice is to give a so-called "tithe" of the congregation's income directly to the poor, the idea obviously coming from the 10% tithe that most churches prescribe for their members. You may be surprised to know that I don't criticize that. Given the expenses congregations have, 10% is sometimes a stretch, and since it is staff members who tend to feel the pinch before anything else, I don't think we need to change this up at the moment. But the point is that most congregations are simply not in the business of providing food, shelter, medical care, etc. to people who need such things. Usually congregations will either band together for this type of thing or send their money to parachurch organizations.

Parachurch organizations are the ones that provide more direct services to the poor. Homeless shelters, "soup" kitchens, even job training and legal aid are provided by these organizations. However, there is one glaring difference between, say, a Christian homeless shelter and a secular homeless shelter: required attendance at worship services. I've actually preached at these things before, though I've always been a bit uncomfortable about it. The services are normally right before the meal. Those who aren't there don't eat. If there is a shelter, people who don't attend the services can find their resident status in jeopardy. In downtown Kansas City there is a parachurch organization that runs a homeless shelter, job training, addiction counseling and meals for people who just come in off the street. It's a good place, and I've volunteered there several times. The only problem I have is that a substantial portion of their payroll is taken up by current seminary students and recent graduates. Most of the people who provide the more technical services - addiction counseling, for example - are volunteers. I would think that an organization that is not a "church" could perhaps spend the money given to it on professionals that provide the services that distinguish it from churches and rely on various volunteer theology students and clergy to provide spiritual sustenance. So even here, some of the money - indeed, at times a significant portion - is not being spent on the poor.

We must also remember that Brooks is tracking charitable giving. This helps his cause, since one of the key differences between Democrats and Republicans, for example, is their relative willingness to use governmental programs to help society. This is shown by the universal healthcare plans already put in place by Massachussetts, Oregon and San Francisco, and Schwarzenegger's proposal for a statewide plan in California. Of course Medicaid is a liberal program, as are breakfast at school, free lunches for poor kids, HeadStart, TANF, WIC, and the multitude of other programs that had conservative opposition at their beginning and suffer continual attacks on their existence. These programs are usually funded better in "blue" states than in "red" states - for example, the complete breakdown of the social safety net in Texas is well-documented, even if it wasn't well-publicized in the 2000 election.

Then there is the troubling fact that red states are federal tax donors, while blue states are federal tax recipients. Some of this is offset by the larger number of military installations in the Western red states. For example, New Mexico is chock-full of land given over to one or another branch of the military, NASA and various other governmental organizations. However, we must not discount how Medicare and Social Security, those great liberal programs, figure into these numbers. Also, when state programs are subsidized by federal dollars, the money is coming from liberals in their blue states.

I would be willing to call it a draw, to admit that the differing worldviews of liberals and conservatives just propel us to different strategies, and that someone like Arthur Brooks probably just doesn't even comprehend that liberals give charitably through governmental programs.

I would be, but I've noticed that whenever some study comes out that paints the USA as a skinflint nation in terms of giving to poorer countries, the same people who never count a government program as "charity" are the ones who howl the loudest and longest about "their tax dollars" going to foreign aid, and how that money needs to be included. And that just pisses me off.

http://immorallogic.blogspot.com/2007/01/liberal-vs-conservative-giving.html

[Cannibal]

I don't think Charity is a liberal-conservative thing. People give because they can or want too.

I agree. Many conservatives seem to disagree though.

[Iowanian]

Cannibal is so uncharitable, that he won't even share his second hand smoke.