It may be the season for giving, but a new study suggests that, compared to other states, that’s not particularly true in Arizona.
Looking at a variety of indicators, the financial advice website WalletHub finds Utah residents, on average, are the most “charitable.” That’s followed by Maryland, Idaho and Oregon.
Arizona? It’s No. 46.
Only California, Louisiana and Rhode Island fared worse.
It isn’t so much that Arizonans are not opening up their wallets.
Using IRS data, WalletHub figures the average Arizonan donates close to 3.1 percent of adjusted gross income to charity. That puts the state squarely in the middle.
But Arizonans appear to be giving less of themselves. Just 35 percent claim they have donated time, ranking Arizona No. 46 in that category.
Spokeswoman Jill Gonzalez said her organization found no link between income and charitable giving, whether in cash or time. In fact, the report gives higher rankings to some of the poorest states.
Where there was a correlation, she said, is that people were more charitable in states where there is a community service requirement to graduate from high school, something Arizona does not have.
“Instilling that at a younger age seems to carry through to adulthood,” Gonzalez said.
“It’s not just money,” she said, “it’s time, too.”
One other factor tends to drag down Arizona’s ratings.
The organization found that, on a per-capita basis, Arizona has among the smallest number of public local charities.
Gonzalez said there is a link between that and how charitable the residents of the community and the state are.
“Places that have these local charities, that’s when people are more willing to give,” she explained.
“They see how that affects their local community,” Gonzalez explained. She said that enables people to make a direct link between their dollars and the good they do, versus giving to some national group or making an online donation.
Gonzalez found something else of interest, and not just in Arizona.
She said there is a difference — sometimes sharp — between the number of people who claim they gave money and the number the IRS says actually took a charitable deduction.
In Arizona, the number who tell surveyors they gave is 35 percent higher than the IRS reports. But Gonzalez said there are probably some good reasons for that.
“It’s not that we’re calling people liars,” she said.
For example, someone who throws a few dollars into a Salvation Army kettle outside a mall will say he or she has donated to charity. But there clearly isn’t a deduction being taken on income taxes.
And Gonzalez also said the IRS numbers don’t capture the donations of those who take the standard deduction and do not itemize.
Read the report: wallethub.com/edu/most-and-least-charitable-states/8555
