Which side is more charitable?

The Arthur Brooks of AEI has a book called Who Really Cares, here’s Ezra Klein summing up the results:

[It] cites data showing that "households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals." Every so often, his findings are trumpeted as proof that conservatives are more genuinely compassionate than liberals. And that's exactly what Nick Kristof did over the weekend.

But the difference can be explained in one word, and it's not "compassion." It's "religion." A recent survey from Google similarly found that self-identified conservatives gave more to charity than did self-identified liberals. But they also found that "if donations to all religious organizations are excluded, liberals give slightly more to charity than conservatives do."

If liberals give only slightly more after religious organizations are excluded, then I’m guessing liberals are giving less over all even after you account for the fact that a good percentage of religious donations essentially go to member services.  Ezra talks a bit about what really counts as charity, there’s a good argument that we’re overvaluing donations to the Ivies and that sort of thing.  They aren’t adding that many more students so better Ivies are not going to help the poor that much even if they do a good job of expanding need-based aid.

Anyhow, I think Ezra gets it wrong when he queries what really counts.  I think it is fair to exclude funding spent on overhead, fund-raising, and member services.  However beyond that we’re best off categorizing into the type of benefit provided rather than arguing what counts.

Beyond that, I think there’s a few ways to consider this:

1. Getting averaging the percentage given by household rather than dividing the amount given by the number of households.  Doing it the latter way emphasizes how much the rich give.
2. Beyond that, apply the Widow’s Mite principle.  Giving out of scarce funds counts more than giving of abundance.  Breaking down to compare similar income quartiles or perhaps by how household income compares to the poverty rate.
3. Include state and local taxes that get spend towards charitable ends.  We vote both with our ballots and our feet, choosing to live in a higher tax but better service providing community is a charitable choice.

Kristof does note that apparently conservatives give more blood, which is about as equitable of a measure as there is out there.  So I’m guessing that liberals won’t necessarily out perform conservatives even under some of these criteria.

Comments

[That Fiancee-Type Person]

From your link, I thought the book was titled "Who Really Cares, Here's Ezra Klein Summing Up the Results." I was disappointed that wasn't the case. It would have been fun.

[Mecha]

Must... remember... sign... up...

Slightly pithy comment on your last comment, because I like being picky sometimes. I wonder what would happen to the ratio if, say, a certain class of people who just happened to trend liberal could not give blood. Like, say... people who have had gay male sex and are willing to admit it. It is worth considering that blood donation may not be a neutral metric either. (Who tends to go outside the country more would be another good question on the neutrality of that metric.)

http://www.redcross.org/services/biomed/0,1082,0_557_,00.html under the HIV guidlines.

Also, remember that religious giving falls into a domain of structured societal pressure to give. So by counting religion and treating purely religious/church donations as positive charity, you are, in fact, using 'Conservatives are more likely to be pushed to give money to their churches' as a metric of 'good', which certainly might want to be weighted against all of the bad things that societal pressure can cause. As opposed to the a much more 'all upside' donation. (This is not wholly unlike your 'Widow's Mite' consideration.)

Finally, on the religious point, charity is giving to others for their benefit, and not yours. Not, essentially, paying dues. Not funding political causes. Not because you're being told to. That thought seems the implication behind the 'Blood Donor' thought: Giving in the purest sense, and as such, would point towards another reason you should be inherently distrusting of religion as a valid charity: It has the highest chance of bad motives (except, perhaps, tax shelters.)

-Mecha