In praise of America's generous poor

During the last week, the New York state media has gone ga-ga over the case of Tom Golisano. Golisano is a multibillionaire businessman from western NY, who spent an estimated $90 million of his own money in three failed 'third party' runs for governor. Fellow blogger John Warren over at Adirondack Almanack noted with curiosity the orgy of coverage of Golisano, considering the media's usual blackout against smaller party and independent candidates. As Ross Perot supporters remember, the media only pays attention to 'third party' candidates if they're superrich.

Golisano recently announced that he was so disgusted by the recently enacted so-called millionaires' tax that he's moving to Florida. He's been long active in campaign against what he considers NYS' anti-business climate. Yet while Golisano himself is moving to Florida, his payroll processing company is remaining in New York, despite the much denounced 'anti-business' climate.

He said he would remain active in NYS politics, funding anti-tax and anti-spending candidates and groups. A pretty galling and presumptuous position to take for someone who wants to wash his hands of the state.

According to his own numbers, he would pay approximately $5 million a year in NYS taxes on his multibillion dollar income (a tiny fraction of what he spent on his political campaigns to no effect). That's what pushed him over the edge. That's what caused him to launch this PR campaign where the media has given him tons of air time to whine about the oppression he faces.

The state media fell over itself to take pity on the whiny, suffering multizillionaire

This is rather typical.

The convenient narrative is that the rich are worth paying attention to and that the poor are nothing more than welfare-hogging leeches on society who choose not to work because they're lazy. And while the rich have taken a little bit of a PR hit lately, after the AIG and banking scandals, stereotypes about the poor remain.

Not surprisingly, the reality is otherwise.

The most generous Americans are the poor.

America's poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show. What's more, their generosity declines less in hard times than the generosity of wealthier givers does. "The lowest-income fifth (of the population) always give at more than their capacity," said Virginia Hodgkinson, former vice president for research at Independent Sector, a Washington-based association of major nonprofit agencies. "The next two-fifths give at capacity, and those above that are capable of giving two or three times more than they give."

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics that in terms of percentage of income, the poorest fifth of Americans donate TWICE AS MUCH to charitable causes than do the richest fifth of Americans.

They noted that figures probably undercount remittances by legal and illegal immigrants to family and friends back home, a multibillion-dollar outlay to which the poor contribute disproportionally.

This, despite the massive tax advantages to charitable giving that the rich are far better positioned to take advantage of.

We must live in bizarroworld where multizillionaires launch a media blitz to whine about a slight tax increase and the poor give away more than they can really afford. But at least there's still some decency in this world, even if the most generous are more likely to be demonized that to get credit.