4 ms·

Frugalness, philanthropy, and community are not mainstream American values. US citizens give more in private charity than anyone else, both in absolute terms a

• rbranson 16y ago
  If you consider any donation to a non-profit as charity, then sure. The article you linked uses a very loose definition of charity: any discretionary income received by non-profit entities. This covers pretty much all donations given to religious institutions (which covers 32%, by far the largest slice of the pie) and a huge amount of money given to educational institutions (which came in second place with 14%). There's very little charitable about the vast majority of modern churches and educational institutions (specifically private colleges and grade schools). I view charity as giving money to an organization from which you receive no benefit. This pretty much wipes out the majority of US "charity."
• cma 16y ago
  GDP in America is inflated with more useless things that net each other out (say, two competing marketing campaigns for different brands of bleach) than GDP anywhere else.