Generosity index: what about those rich, greedy Republicans?

A couple of days ago, I responded to Fred Clark’s claim at slacktivist that “[i]t is not possible to endorse the work of charitable agencies [* * *] while simultaneously working to eliminate the estate tax.” The discussion has continued in the comments at slacktivist.

In the comments, I used the “generosity index” to support my position that conservatives are not less generous than liberals. In fact, the generosity index suggests that red states are more generous than blue states.

Beth attempted to explain the apparent discrepancy between red states’ and blue states’ generosity indexes by stating that a small number of rich Republicans giving significantly less than the majority Democrats would lower the generosity index for blue states as a “statistical quirk” of calculating averages. Beth makes a valid point and I’m doing a lousy job of summarizing it. I recommend that you read the comments at slacktivist. I’ll place a link there to bring you back here.

Fortunately, the people at Catalogue for Philanthropy (“CFP,”¹I’d like to thank CFP for posting the information and a phone number for questions. I’d also like to thank Marty Cohn for answering the phone (three times!), directing me to the data already posted on their website, and answering my questions. the ones who created the generosity index) already thought of this issue. They calculate the generosity index for each state four times using only tax returns with adjusted gross income (“AGI”) in the following ranges:

• All returns
• $75,000 to $100,000
• $100,000 to $200,000
• $200,000+

By limiting the data to narrow ranges, CFP is able to avoid the effect of statistical outliers on the averages.

For convenience, I summarized the generosity index rank by adjusted gross income levels and added color coding for whether the state voted “red” or “blue.”

When we eliminate those greedy, fat cat Republicans by limiting our inquiry to those in the $75,000 to $100,000 AGI range, the red states are even more dominant on the top of the generosity index ranking than if we look at the data for all returns. This seems to be the opposite of what Beth expected.

Interestingly enough, if we look at the data for those with AGIs of at least $200,000 (which according to this site should be 63% Republican voters, 35% Democrat voters), the red states still rise to the top of the generosity index rankings.

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  I’d like to thank CFP for posting the information and a phone number for questions. I’d also like to thank Marty Cohn for answering the phone (three times!), directing me to the data already posted on their website, and answering my questions.