Friday, October 17, 2014

It is the poor who gives alms

Americans, on average, donate 3 percent of their income to charities, a number that has not changed much over the years.

Between 2006 and 2012, the country’s wealthiest reduced the percentage of their income that they donated to charities by 4.6 percent., despite  the wealthiest of Americans received 95 percent of income increases since 2009.

Over the same period, middle- and lower-income Americans increased their charitable giving by 4.5 percent and that after only having an average of 0.1 percent increase in income.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy website editor Stacey Palmer explained  “Lower- and middle-income people know people who lost their jobs or are homeless, and they worry that they themselves are a day away from losing their jobs. They’re very sensitive to the needs of other people and recognize that these years have been hard.”

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