Government’s Role

In “Who Really Cares: America’s Charity Divide – Who Gives, Who Doesn’t, and Why It Matters”, Arthur C. Brooks uses hard data to prove that, when it comes to charitable giving, conservatives – especially religious conservatives – are far more generous than liberals, who seem to believe that “compassion” begins and ends with voting for government handouts.

Conservative households in America donate 30% more money to charity each year than liberal households, even in spite of lower average incomes

Conservatives are also more generous in other ways, such as blood donations, and volunteer work. In fact, if liberals gave blood like conservatives do, the blood supply in the U.S. would jump by about 45%

People who mistrust big government give more than those who rely on the government to take care of the poor. This includes giving and volunteering even to traditionally “progressive causes” such as the arts and the environment

Conservative “red” states give away far more of their incomes than liberal “blue” states do

Religious people give away four times more money each year than secularists. This is not just because of giving to churches – religious people are 10 percent more likely than secularists to give money to explicitly nonreligious charities

Religious people are far more generous than secularists with their time. For instance, a religious person is 57% more likely than a secularist to help a homeless person

Religious people are also more generous in informal ways, such as giving money to family members, and behaving honestly

A working poor family without welfare support gives, on average, more than three times as much money to charity each year as a family with the same total income that receives welfare support. In other words, poverty does not discourage charity in America — but welfare does

People raised in intact and religious families are more charitable than those who are not. For instance, married parents are 9 percentage points more likely to give money than divorced parents, and 29 points more likely than never-married parents

Charitable giving spurs the economy: at the national level, a $1 increase in giving per person stimulates a $19 increase in GDP per capita

Americans give far more money and are far more likely to volunteer their time than citizens of any European country. For example, the average American family gives three and a half times as much as a French family, seven times as much as a German family, and 14 times as much as an Italian family

Charitable giving and volunteering improve physical health and happiness, and lead to better citizenship — whereheas many government policies that discourage private charitable behavior have negative effects

While Politicklish.com takes no money from sales or interest in this book, and is certainly not trying to sling the book for the author (who we don’t know from anyone), we’re always in favor of exposing data to the public, and this book’s full of data. Read for yourself if you like.