Danny Westneat
Does our giving come up short?
By Danny Westneat
Seattle Times news columnist
Today, we toast what we have. For me, it's also a time to grapple with what I give.
You see, I just learned that I'm now one of the richest people on Earth. In fact, I'm among the top 1 percent of the globe's wealthiest people. I didn't score a fat inheritance. My dad was a professor, my mom a librarian. And they're both still gadding about, bent on squandering what little there ever was of our family estate.
No, I'm so rich, as are most of you, simply because I'm a middle-class American. If you make $50,000 a year or more, you're richer than 99 percent of the world.
I discovered this at a Web site called Global Rich List (globalrichlist.com). You enter your income and, using data from the World Bank, it ranks you like the Forbes 400. Except it's the Forbes Six Billion.
It's a broad measure. It makes no distinction between what it takes to buy a house in Seattle versus, say, Sudan. But it's eye-opening anyway.
It made me wonder: What am I doing with this wealth?
The motto over at the Gates Foundation is "To whom much has been given, much is expected." So when it comes to charity, am I at all up to par?
I've been donating 2 to 3 percent of my income, say my tax returns. That seems an embarrassingly low amount, now that I see it on paper. Yet it's about the Washington state average for my middle-high income bracket.
Average is OK. Except it turns out this is one stingy state.
There are a spate of new reports out ranking the states on charitable giving. Even though we boast the biggest giver of all, Bill Gates, collectively we are scarcely more benevolent than Scrooge.
Boston's Catalogue for Philanthropy uses tax-return data to judge how much we give relative to how much we have. Washington is a rich state — we were 13th last year in income. But on the "generosity index," even counting all the manna from Gates, we came in 31st.
We look even worse when you consider total wealth, says San Francisco's New Tithing Group. Accounting for income, estate size and cost of living, Washington ranks a lowly 39th in generosity. Only 11 states are tighter with donations.
The folks at the Catalogue for Philanthropy were so surprised at the disparity between Washington's wealth and its charity that they helped open a branch here, in Bellingham, to try to jumpstart the region's relatively skimpy giving.
Who gives the biggest slice of their wealth? The red states. In one ranking, Arkansas was most generous. In the other, it was Utah. Places like Mississippi and Oklahoma consistently rate high.
It may be the church factor, writes George McCully, president of the Catalogue for Philanthropy. The "tithing evangelical Protestants" of the Bible Belt are such prodigious givers "it suggests the wealthiest taxpayers in the wealthy states can afford to give significantly more."
I've never thought of myself as wealthy. Definitely never, ever wanted to emulate the Bible Belters.
Maybe when it comes to charity, it's time to start.
Danny Westneat's column appears Thursday and Sunday.
Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.