the bottom 20 percent, bestow the most: 3.2 percent. The statistic is weirdly skewed. One per- son in the top 20 percent with an average income of $92,000 gives $1196 per year; this is twice as much as one person in the bottom 20 percent with an average income of $18,500 who gives $592 per year. The gap, however,
between what those two amounts might buy for the family in the pent- house with a view ver- sus the family in the windowless basement is enormous: a new lap- top vs. a month’s worth of groceries. Is this one reason
why the hedge-fund crowd doesn’t want to be identified as giv- ers — because in many cases they aren’t? And how are poor folks’ dona- tions counted — if at
all? Homeless handouts, drop-offs at Father Joe’s or the Salvation Army, church collection plates?
Do we desire immortality? What patterns are worth surveying in this precis of local philanthropy? Education, health, and the arts are the biggest recipients. I think this makes good sense. Carl Jung said there
were two reasons why human beings live long past the age of our repro- ductive function, these days into our 80s and 90s. Why, besides medical advances, do we desire longevity? First, to indi- viduate, that is, discover our deepest calling as a person. And second, to support those institutions that helped raise us and from which we profited mentally, socially, mon- etarily, and individually. The second reason is
why the top 1 percent of Americans live 15 years longer than the bottom 1 percent. Giving to the college
where you were educated and giving to a hospital or a research center where you or a family member received care are both good karma. And yet focusing on institutions that the wealthy’s fam- ily and friends will use only peripherally benefits those with the most basic needs — needs that the poor have in abundance but often can’t supply. If we were neighbors to those who scrape by with much less than the American middle class has, most of us would know this. Maybe it’s true that
the less you have the more you share, the more you have, the more you hoard. One study, cited in The Atlantic, found that
in 2012, “not one of the top 50 individual chari- table gifts [in America] went to a social-service organization or to a char- ity that principally serves the poor and the dispos- sessed.” Instead, those 50 gifts went to elite Eastern colleges and prep schools as well as museums and opera companies in the largest cities. Is the word “disproportionate” appro- priate here? What I’d love to see
is a ranking of all donors by the amount of their gifts as a percentage of their pre-tax income. Yes, it’s not going to happen. But maybe such disclosure would let us clarify who gains from the phrase, “a tax- deductible contribution.” We know where the San Diego Food Bank’s money went, $34.7 mil- lion in 2015: to feed the hungry, some 350,000
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every month. Though the contributors want privacy, I wonder why we can’t have a simple comparison between income level and giving. No names, just the facts. Wealth. If you’ve got
it, in spades, you need not consult anyone on what to do with it. You spend it. You hoard it. You pass the booty on to your kids. And you may give it to charity during or after your lifetime, though that’s not required. With any payout, there are taxes. But the tax penalty is far less onerous, if you donate the money. According to the
Indiana University- Purdue University at Indianapolis, a research consortium that tracks our countr y’s “pub- licly announced chari- table gifts of $1 million or more,” America’s givingest couple is Bill
and Melinda Gates. As a couple and through their foundation, the pair has donated $42.48 billion. Close behind is War-
ren Buffet, who has gifted $41.13 billion. (One fun fact from the recent HBO documentary Becoming Warren Buffet is that he says he will, before his death, part with 99 per- cent of the money he’s made in his lifetime.) In 2006, the Oracle of Omaha gave $36.05 bil- lion to the Gates Founda- tion — yet another avenue to distribute wealth to other distributors. They, in turn, shower money on hundreds of causes, mostly to nongovern- ment operations. The Gates Foundation’s two major targets are to help control infectious diseases and to eradicate extreme poverty — far from the shores of America.
— Thomas Larson ■
San Diego Reader April 20, 2017 27
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