During the Great Recession, tens of thousands of residents in Los Angeles County fell into poverty, and thousands more became homeless and went hungry. Simultaneously, the public sector was forced to reduce funding for many human services. It’s now apparent that philanthropic giving also declined, imperiling our community’s most vulnerable citizens and posing an ominous challenge to the county’s social fabric.
UCLA’s Quality of Life Index, released in April, found that a significant number of county residents are financially stressed and experiencing intense anxiety over their economic viability. For example, 31% of all residents are worried about losing their homes and becoming homeless. More than half with annual household incomes of less than $30,000, and even 24% earning between $90,000 and $120,000, fear the same fate. Similarly, 29% of all residents are concerned about going hungry because they can’t afford the cost of food. Half of households earning less than $30,000, and one quarter earning between $60,000 and $90,000, also worry about food security.
The more diverse California becomes, the less charity people give. It’s pretty simple. People prefer to help people racially like themselves.
Steve Sailer writes in 2007: “Can you guess which two cities lead the new list of top 50 metropolitan areas in terms of the highest percentage of adults volunteering for charity? And which two cities came in last? These aren’t trick questions.”
Comments:
* 1. Minneapolis-St. Paul
2. Salt Lake City
…
49. Miami
50. Las Vegas
Not too hard, was it?
* A quick look at the rankings is here on page 14 of the executive summary.
Amazingly, Detroit (34) easily beat out Los Angeles (44) and New York (48).
For all the left-wing activism in the Bay Area, you might expect San Francisco to perform better than its even-Steven 23.
Why are folks from Providence, Rhode Island so uninvolved (42)? People from Boston are hardly any more likely to volunteer than folks from Chicago.
The Northwest does pretty good: Seattle (5) and Portland (6) were both up there. I’m actually surprised to see Seattle beat out Portland. I would have figured the opposite.
* Steve, as a humble Brit I’m not up to speed on where the Latinos are citywise; but several times you’ve referenced the very low levels of co-operativeness and civic-mindedness among the sunny South West’s exciting vibrant invaders. Does this poll bear that out?
* Using Arthur Brooks’ “Who Really Cares” book as a guide, one would guess that the more religious (liberal or conservative) a city is, the more it would give.
Looking at the top and bottom ten, the volunteering data seems to line up pretty well. I’d think that a ranking of churchgoers per 1000 would correlate pretty well with the ranking of volunteers. Of course, Catholics are notorious for not being as involved, so it is no surprise that Miami and LV are so low. I don’t think it is a matter of race so much as it is a matter of more non-Catholic Christians means more volunteers.
* When I did volunteer work at a women’s shelter in Dallas, there were several Hispanics on staff. None were Mexican. The two I worked with most closely didn’t have very high opinions of Mexicans, either.
* I hate to say it, but volunteer work could be dangerous in certain parts of our town, and Im guessing those mostly white-medium sized cities would not have too much “dangerous-looking” areas to the whites. People, as Steve has often pointed out so correctly, are more prone to “help out” others that look like them, almost assuredly out of evolutionary urges whether they realize it or not.
* “You move it. I’m too hung over.”
With this remark the Mexican male in the house tossed his car keys out to us.
“Us” as in volunteers affiliated with the Dallas chapter of Habitat for Humanity. We had been asked to finish re-siding a house in West Dallas (barrio near downtown). The Mexican male was the boyfriend of the single mother who owned the house. He had left his station wagon blocking the driveway that Saturday morning. We could not drive trucks around the back of the house to drop off construction materials. Thus the need to move his car.
All the volunteers were white.
* Gregory Rodriguez writes in the New York Times: “In Los Angeles, which has the largest Mexican population in the country, there is no ethnic-Mexican hospital, cemetery or broad-based charity organization.” No college either.
