I am also curious to understand why you think that earning to give is more impactful than 98%+ of jobs. Also, did you mean 98% of EA-aligned jobs or all jobs?
It’s super rough but I was thinking about jobs that college graduates take in general.
One line of thinking is based on a direct estimate:
Average college grad income ~$80k, so 20% donations = $16k per year
Mean global income is ~18k vs. GiveDirectly recipients at $500
So $1 to GiveDirectly creates value equivalent to increasing global income by ~$30
So that’s ~$500k per year equivalent
My impression is very few jobs add this much to world income (e.g. here’s one piece of reading about this). Maybe just people who are both highly paid and do something with a lot of positive externalities, like useful R&D or something like that.
Another line of thinking is that earning to give for GiveDirectly is a career path that has already been heavily selected for impact i.e. it contributes to global development, which is one of the most pressing global problems, it’s supporting an intervention and org that’s probably more effective than average within that cause, and it involves a strategy with some leverage (i.e. earning to give). So, we shouldn’t expect it to be easy to find something a lot better.
I am also curious to understand why you think that earning to give is more impactful than 98%+ of jobs. Also, did you mean 98% of EA-aligned jobs or all jobs?
It’s super rough but I was thinking about jobs that college graduates take in general.
One line of thinking is based on a direct estimate:
Average college grad income ~$80k, so 20% donations = $16k per year
Mean global income is ~18k vs. GiveDirectly recipients at $500
So $1 to GiveDirectly creates value equivalent to increasing global income by ~$30
So that’s ~$500k per year equivalent
My impression is very few jobs add this much to world income (e.g. here’s one piece of reading about this). Maybe just people who are both highly paid and do something with a lot of positive externalities, like useful R&D or something like that.
Another line of thinking is that earning to give for GiveDirectly is a career path that has already been heavily selected for impact i.e. it contributes to global development, which is one of the most pressing global problems, it’s supporting an intervention and org that’s probably more effective than average within that cause, and it involves a strategy with some leverage (i.e. earning to give). So, we shouldn’t expect it to be easy to find something a lot better.