- There’s a catch: as people get richer, they give more money in total, but they give smaller fractions of their annual income. In one
study, psychologists demonstrated that merely thinking about socioeconomic status is enough to change the amount of charitable giving
that we think is appropriate. When people thought about themselves as somewhere in the middle of the wealth ladder, they felt obligated
to give 4.65 percent of their annual income to charity. But when they imagined themselves at the top of the ladder, they only reported an
obligation to give 2.9 percent of their annual income to charity. Similar trends can be found in the real world: in the United States,
households making less than $25,000 a year donate 4.2 percent of their income to charity. Households making more than $100,000 a year
donate just 2.7 percent of their income to charity.
michael s
(Michael S)
#1