Report: Those Who Earn Less Are Giving More

"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me," wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald in a short story entitled 'The Rich Boy,' in 1926.  The famed writer knew his topic well; a year earlier his book, “The Great Gatsby” was published, illuminating the excesses and decadent lifestyles of wealthy residents on Long Island.

Here in Dallas we don’t have to look far to find an example.  Investor Sam Wyly is looking at a possible $300 million forfeiture order for using offshore trusts to hide stock and make illegal trades. (Dallas Morning News, Oct. 23). The 13-year fraud made Sam and his brother at least $550 million.

While the Securities and Exchange Commission decides just how much he must turn over, Wyly filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in an effort to his preserve assets. Then he began spending money like a drunken sailor on shore leave.  Shelling out cash at a “burn rate” of about $3.75 million a month, Wyly apparently wanted to erase assets to make an asset freeze by the SEC necessary, thereby further protecting his wealth from creditors – the two biggest being the Internal Revenue Service and the SEC itself.

On my, what simple lives most of us lead compared to the super-rich.  Perhaps this is Fitzgerald’s intended message.

As Americans, our view toward money and how to use it varies widely.  According to a recent report in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, poor and middle-class earners dug deep into their pockets to give a larger percentage of their incomes to charity.  According to the Chronicle’s analysis of tax data, wealthy Americans earned more, but the portion of the income they gave to charity declined.

The wealthiest Americans—those who earned $200,000 or more—reduced the share of income they gave to charity by 4.6 percent from 2006 to 2012. Meanwhile, Americans who earned less than $100,000 chipped in 4.5 percent more of their income during the same time period.  

What are we to make of this seeming paradox?  To me the answer is simple and clear:  Those who earn less have witnessed – perhaps even experiencing – poverty in an up-close and personal way.  There are more of us who have felt the blow of job losses, foreclosures, business failures, unemployment and life on hand-to-mouth budgets.

According to Federal Reserve Chairman Janice Yellen, income equality is the worst it has been since the 1920s.  America’s top one percent owns 41.8 percent of all wealth while the bottom 60 percent own just 1.7 percent.

There is a story about a church in the eastern U.S. with many wealthy parishioners.  One Sunday they eagerly awaited the inaugural appearance of their new minister.  Before the service began, a dirty, disheveled and obviously homeless bum walks in and sits in a pew near the front of the church.  Ragged, shabby and smelly, his presence makes congregants visibly uncomfortable. 

When the service begins, the senior warden appears and announces that it’s a great day for the church because he is there to introduce their new pastor.  He says, “Please welcome the Reverend Paul Angel” (not his real name).

The bum stands up and walks to the pulpit.  He thanks the senior warden for the kind introduction and assures the congregants he doesn’t normally dress like a homeless man.  But then he adds, paraphrasing scripture, “Whatever you do for the least of your brothers, you do for yourselves.” 

During a recent trip to Dallas, former President Jimmy Carter and wife Rosalyn set an inspiring example.  They spent a week in the area doing hard physical labor for Habitat for Humanity.  Said the 90-year-old ex-president, “No matter what your faith may be, we are taught to share what we have with poor people.” 

I wonder how much Sam Wylie shared.

Photo courtesy of Giving USA 2014 Report.