When Alexis de
Tocqueville came to America in 1835, he was surprised by how willing people
were to donate their time and money to causes they considered worthy. “The
Americans,” he wrote, “make associations to give entertainments, to found
seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send
missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they found hospitals, prisons,
and schools.”
In the past two
centuries, that spirit of generosity has only become more ingrained in the
American culture. According to The American magazine,1 in 2006, Americans
gave $295 billion to charity, up 4.2 percent from the previous year.
Charitable donations have consistently risen faster than the GDP since World
War II. Per capita GDP in the U.S. has gone up by about 150 percent during the
last half century. At the same time, charitable donations have risen by almost
200 percent.
It is estimated that
some 70 to 80 percent of Americans donate each year, and the average household
contributes more than $1,000 a year, with about a third of it going to places
of worship, while two-thirds is given to secular causes, such as schools.
Though some critics
love to complain that Americans consume too much and share too little, the
numbers undermine this line of reasoning. Per capita, the people in the United
States are perhaps the most generous in the world, as measured by what they
give. In 1995, we gave three-and-a-half times more than the French, seven
times more than the Germans, and fourteen times more than the Italians.
Americans donate more of their time as well — 15 percent more than the Dutch,
21 percent more than the Swiss, and 32 percent more than the Germans. Those
figures are adjusted for education, income, age, sex, and marital status. In
other words, the American level of giving cannot be explained by saying that
Americans simply have more money and time to give.
Neither can it be
explained by tax laws that favor charitable donations. In fact, the U.S. paid
out, in effect, $37.2 billion in 2002 as a result of people deducting donations
from their tax returns. But, upon closer analysis, we find that tax policy has
little to do with the high level of donations in the U.S. Only a third of
Americans itemize deductions on their...
