I currently do not. My current thought is that I have no idea where the money is going, and if the person is actually poor (for example, I live in Oakland and there are a bunch of Romani women walking around our trains with sleeping babies, aggressively panhandling, who actually live fairly good, middle-class lives in a local suburb).
While most beggars are probably very poor, there are beggars in less affluent countries who are probably worse off.
On the flip side of that, maybe the beggars in less affluent countries are happier, because happiness stems more from comparison with those around you than actual means?
I also feel like giving money might further encourage begging, which is undesirable social behavior.
On the flip side, beggars being around might encourage more people to think about charity in general.
But on the flip side of that, if people give them money, they might give less money to effective charities because of moral licensing.
TELL ME HOW TO FEEL, OH GREAT WIZARDS OF EA.
I think the best argument for this is developing the social skill of being able to interact with people who are different from you. When you give money to a panhandler, it’s an opportunity to have an interaction you wouldn’t have had otherwise.
My impression is that many of these beggars are earning enough to survive, albeit in poverty, so your marginal dollar is probably more effective elsewhere given most people are not making the choice to give to them or not based on EA principles and others will continue to support them. If you consider local homelessness a top priority, my guess is that other interventions than small direct giving would be more effective, though I have not looked into it.
A few days ago I gave money to a homeless veteran who was in a wheelchair, on the streets of my hometown. He had a card that proved he was a veteran. He said he wanted to stay in a homeless shelter in Nashville and needed some cash for that purpose. Maybe so. I gave him $7. Why? Because (1) it was my town; and (2) he was a veteran. I didn’t do a calculus about whether the $7 would have been better spent on somebody far away. I think we should try to do good locally as well. If you ignore the suffering people in your immediate vicinity because it’s more expensive and possibly more distressing to notice the suffering in your immediate vicinity, because perhaps you are implicated in it, then that’s a problem.
I like this answer from theunitofcaring on tumblr: