The TLYCS calculator / pledge is specifically recommending an amount toward “organizations effectively helping people in extreme poverty.” The resultant amounts are easier to work with for people who also want to donate to non-effective or non-poverty organizations (e.g., because they object to the1 idea of free-riding on others in their community by not giving in addition to receiving).
So one’s reaction to the size of the recommendation will be influenced, to some extent, by whether this sum is assumed to be all of the donor’s philanthropy or perhaps a third of it.
I do think that calling US people to at least the US average—which IIRC is about 2-3 percent and not that correlated with income? -- would be hard to criticize as too demanding for the vast majority of US incomes. Maybe a higher number would be as well, but this one has the virtue of feeling more “objective” than made up out of thin air.
The TLYCS calculator / pledge is specifically recommending an amount toward “organizations effectively helping people in extreme poverty.” The resultant amounts are easier to work with for people who also want to donate to non-effective or non-poverty organizations (e.g., because they object to the1 idea of free-riding on others in their community by not giving in addition to receiving).
So one’s reaction to the size of the recommendation will be influenced, to some extent, by whether this sum is assumed to be all of the donor’s philanthropy or perhaps a third of it.
I do think that calling US people to at least the US average—which IIRC is about 2-3 percent and not that correlated with income? -- would be hard to criticize as too demanding for the vast majority of US incomes. Maybe a higher number would be as well, but this one has the virtue of feeling more “objective” than made up out of thin air.