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Poor give more generously than the rich

This article is more than 22 years old
Survey finds least well-off donate 4.5% of income to good causes, but not all charities are helping the most needy

The poor are more generous than the rich when it comes to giving to good causes, according to research which challenges the "Robin Hood" myth of charity as an agent of redistribution.

A study published today finds that the least well-off give a higher proportion of their income to charity than the wealthy, no matter what their age, class or beliefs.

The conclusion flies in the face of the traditional image of the most generous givers as being middle-aged, middle class religious women living in the south-east of England. While "Dorothy Donor" may be giving more in absolute terms, people on lower incomes are putting a higher percentage of their cash in collection boxes this Christmas.

The report, titled The Widow's Might: how charities depend on the poor, also argues that charities are not necessarily the engines of redistribution from rich to poor that they are widely believed to be.

Many charities - such as those supporting education or the arts - do not help the most needy, the study says. It accuses the charitable sector of giving a "misleading" impression of alleviating poverty in order to secure tax breaks and voluntary support.

The government is reviewing the technical definition of charity, which still depends largely on a 400-year-old law. The 1601 Charitable Uses Act provides four categories of charity, of which "relief of poverty" is just one, together with advancement of religion, education and other benefit to the community.

Ministers are eager to offer the public greater transparency over where their money goes when they donate, amid concern at public scepticism.

The study, by Beth Egan of the independent thinktank Social Market Foundation, proposes a new national goal of donating 2% of pre-tax personal income to charity, as well as calling on the government to make it easier to donate and on good causes to be bolder in asking wealthier individuals for larger sums.

The report's conclusion that the poor give more generously than the rich, even though charities help the needy less than many believe, is based on an analysis of more than 1,000 donors to 10 British charities, ranging in focus from poverty to animal welfare, culture and disaster relief.

The breakdown reveals that those with an annual income below £5,000 give an average of almost 4.5% to good causes, but that the proportion falls the higher the income. People earning £40,000 or more donate just over 2% to charity.

While the average proportion of income donated rises again at the very rich end of the spectrum, that is down to "the exceptional generosity on the part of a minority of high income givers rather than widespread generosity among the wealthy", the report concludes.

The same pattern applies to both male and female donors, though - contrary to popular belief - all but the poorest men give a higher proportion of their income than women. However, though they give a smaller share of their wealth, women remain more likely to donate to charity than men.

The general trend of the poor giving more also remains true among donors who describe themselves as religious, although believers on middle incomes give a significantly higher share of their income than those who do not call themselves religious.

Age is also less important than income in dictating the proportion given to charity, although the study finds giving less generous among people born after 1950 than among the generation born during or before the second world war.

Ms Egan said: "This undermines the myth of charity as a vehicle by which the rich help the poor, because whichever way you slice the population, the poor give more as a percentage of income."

The findings mattered because "people should know what it means to give money to charity," she said. "There is not a crisis of confidence over giving among the public, but trust is the key thing charities have got over other organisations and they have to what they can to define where money goes."

The study offers a crumb of comfort with the revelation that the absence of charitable redistribution is not a modern phenomenon. An 1845 edition of The Christian Mothers Magazine notes: "Poor contributions, whether we consider the proportion which they bear to the whole wealth of the givers or their aggregate amount, are, in effect, beyond all comparison the most important."

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