Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to You might want to get your research money refunded.

Am I gonna have to get Disraeli on ya?
Robert — (archived)

You know, the one about "lies, damned lies, and statistics"?

You're usually more careful when you spin statistics. I guess you were in a hurry when you picked that one. But note a couple of things: Those statistics include religious donations, and to the weak extent that the statistics correlate red/blue state, you'd expect tithing among the large populations of religious conservatives in the red states, which seriously distorts the numbers. We're talking pure charity here, not contributing to the upkeep of one's own church, and not to put too fine a point on it, buying one's way into Heaven.

The other thing to note you'd have had to dig more than superficially to find, but that's the striking difference in rankings when analyzed by income level. California ranks 31 down the Generosity Index when all income levels are averaged, but if you look separately at income levels (in the downloadable Excel spreadsheet) above 200K, you discover that California ranks 44th.

The statistics show that wealthy people are proportionately less generous than the middle class. States with the highest average income levels have the lowest rates of charitable giving. The poor dig deeper than the rich to help other people.

Thank God I do my own market research.

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