Thanks for this Sjir. Unsurprisingly, I agree with almost all of it.
I think you make this point overall but just want to emphasise: I don’t think giving 10% is feasible for the median American in their twenties (for example). So I think I would phrase this as something like ‘giving effectively should be normal for those with disposable income in high income countries; and it should be normal to give significantly according to your means.’
You may be right that 10% is in fact feasible for most people within EA, but that is a function of EA attracting a lot of people with unusual financial security.
I feel like the spirit of early EA and Giving What We Can (and Christianity, TBH) was pushing back on this Occupy mindset of “We are the 99%.” In other words, if you’re part of the global elite (or even the 50%?), rather than focusing your energy on attacking people even more privileged than you, focus on taking responsibility for your own privilege and what you personally can give first.
I think it’s even more important to promote this idea today as I get the sense that the Western world is getting even angrier and adopting even more of a victim mindset, so I personally would feel like we’ve lost something valuable if lots of EAs today have the view that “giving 10% is [not] feasible for the median American in their twenties.”
I wonder if Jack would be equally happy with the weaker claim that giving 10% is not advisable for the median American in their twenties. I’m not sure whether I’d agree even with that but wm it seems more plausible to me than claiming it’s not feasible.
And giving 10% could be not advisible (in the sense that it may not be the best possible use of the median 20s person’s funds) but superior to their counterfactual use of the funds.
Don’t really feel like it’s an either/or… It can both the case that we should use political processes to require the extremely wealthy to do more to solve world problems AND that we less wealthy, but still comfortable, in global terms, are morally required to do more. After all, even 10% of 30k is saving 6 lives in a decade at 5k/life and would result in mere struggle for one in the developed world.
I think this might come down to opinion and lifestyle expectation, but I think 10% could be feesable for the median American in their 20s.
According to this forbes article, the median wage of someone in their 20s in the states is about $45,000 US—this puts you in the realm of the top 1% of earners worldwide (hard to know exactly).
Yes the cost of living is higher in America than many countries, but its less than the majority of other high income countries. I think that giving away 5,000 dollars-ish annually and living on 40k could be feesable for the majority on median wage—although there are loads of scenarios where it wouldn’t be (single mother, living in expensive city, health issues etc.).
I fully acknowledge here’s a lot of subjectivity as to what “financial security” means, especially in a country like America where the government safety net isn’t what it is in other high income countries.
TDLR: I agree with the general idea that many more people could do it than are currently doing it, but I suspect that asking the median American in their 20s to do it would involve some level of financial challenge/hardship, such as living with roommates when one doesn’t want to, or not saving money for retirement. I’m reminded of the numbers a few months ago showing that about half of Americans wouldn’t be able to cover a surprise $400 expense without borrowing money.
Like a lot of personal finance, the personal aspect of it matters a lot. If I have a salary of $45,000 in the USA, then I’ll be receiving about $35,000 per year.[1] The estimated annual cost of living for one adult (with no children) is higher than $35,000 in most major American cities.[2] I haven’t seen any US city with a population more than 400,000 that has an annual cost of living lower than $35,000 (they might exist though, I didn’t do a rigorous search). Of course, this doesn’t account for any wiggle room in the budget, so we better hope that the car doesn’t breakdown on the way to work, or that we don’t suddenly find a swollen lymph node and need to pay $10,000 for a CT scan.
So there are tradeoffs. And it can be difficult to put oneself in another person’s shoes. For people with many resources, for people who have a strong family network they can rely on, for people who were raised in households that were financially stable enough to allow children to focus on studies, for people who have the prestige of a fancy pedigree (and the door that it opens), it can be hard to understand the difficulties of living without these advantages. I suspect many EAs fall into one or more of these categories.
EPI’s numbers are somewhat suspect for this purpose in my opinion—it gave me about $975 per month for transportation in the rural county where my parents live for a single person with no kids, which seems high. Other methodological assumptions seem to err on the side of producing too high rather than too low an estimate for basic decent standard of living, like assuming no employer-provided insurance, using the 40th percentile for housing stock, etc.
This was basically my thinking. I think it is reasonable to keep an emergency fund to cover things like (in particular) unexpected healthcare bills, and that giving away 10% would make this hard to do. My anecdotal experience of high cost of living cities in the US is that it would be challenging to live there on $35k of take home salary.
Of course, in a strictly utilitarian sense, I guess it isn’t “reasonable”, because it’s not more “reasonable” than protecting someone from a deadly case of malaria—but then none of us lives out that maximalist thinking in reality anyway. (E.g. everyone commenting on this post spends at least some money on themselves in a way that could be redirected elsewhere.)
I’m really quite interested in how much disagreement my original comment got, even as a professional promoter of effective giving myself. It’s informative!
giving effectively should be normal for those with disposable income in high income countries; and it should be normal to give significantly according to your means
I like this rephrasing, because it makes somewhat clear that if you lack disposable income we aren’t expecting your to put yourself in hardship in order to donate.
Thanks for this Sjir. Unsurprisingly, I agree with almost all of it.
I think you make this point overall but just want to emphasise: I don’t think giving 10% is feasible for the median American in their twenties (for example). So I think I would phrase this as something like ‘giving effectively should be normal for those with disposable income in high income countries; and it should be normal to give significantly according to your means.’
You may be right that 10% is in fact feasible for most people within EA, but that is a function of EA attracting a lot of people with unusual financial security.
I feel like the spirit of early EA and Giving What We Can (and Christianity, TBH) was pushing back on this Occupy mindset of “We are the 99%.” In other words, if you’re part of the global elite (or even the 50%?), rather than focusing your energy on attacking people even more privileged than you, focus on taking responsibility for your own privilege and what you personally can give first.
I think it’s even more important to promote this idea today as I get the sense that the Western world is getting even angrier and adopting even more of a victim mindset, so I personally would feel like we’ve lost something valuable if lots of EAs today have the view that “giving 10% is [not] feasible for the median American in their twenties.”
I wonder if Jack would be equally happy with the weaker claim that giving 10% is not advisable for the median American in their twenties. I’m not sure whether I’d agree even with that but wm it seems more plausible to me than claiming it’s not feasible.
And giving 10% could be not advisible (in the sense that it may not be the best possible use of the median 20s person’s funds) but superior to their counterfactual use of the funds.
Yes, this is more what I meant (although not sure this defuses the criticisms/disagreement)
Don’t really feel like it’s an either/or… It can both the case that we should use political processes to require the extremely wealthy to do more to solve world problems AND that we less wealthy, but still comfortable, in global terms, are morally required to do more. After all, even 10% of 30k is saving 6 lives in a decade at 5k/life and would result in mere struggle for one in the developed world.
I think this might come down to opinion and lifestyle expectation, but I think 10% could be feesable for the median American in their 20s.
According to this forbes article, the median wage of someone in their 20s in the states is about $45,000 US—this puts you in the realm of the top 1% of earners worldwide (hard to know exactly).
Yes the cost of living is higher in America than many countries, but its less than the majority of other high income countries. I think that giving away 5,000 dollars-ish annually and living on 40k could be feesable for the majority on median wage—although there are loads of scenarios where it wouldn’t be (single mother, living in expensive city, health issues etc.).
I fully acknowledge here’s a lot of subjectivity as to what “financial security” means, especially in a country like America where the government safety net isn’t what it is in other high income countries.
TDLR: I agree with the general idea that many more people could do it than are currently doing it, but I suspect that asking the median American in their 20s to do it would involve some level of financial challenge/hardship, such as living with roommates when one doesn’t want to, or not saving money for retirement. I’m reminded of the numbers a few months ago showing that about half of Americans wouldn’t be able to cover a surprise $400 expense without borrowing money.
Like a lot of personal finance, the personal aspect of it matters a lot. If I have a salary of $45,000 in the USA, then I’ll be receiving about $35,000 per year.[1] The estimated annual cost of living for one adult (with no children) is higher than $35,000 in most major American cities.[2] I haven’t seen any US city with a population more than 400,000 that has an annual cost of living lower than $35,000 (they might exist though, I didn’t do a rigorous search). Of course, this doesn’t account for any wiggle room in the budget, so we better hope that the car doesn’t breakdown on the way to work, or that we don’t suddenly find a swollen lymph node and need to pay $10,000 for a CT scan.
So there are tradeoffs. And it can be difficult to put oneself in another person’s shoes. For people with many resources, for people who have a strong family network they can rely on, for people who were raised in households that were financially stable enough to allow children to focus on studies, for people who have the prestige of a fancy pedigree (and the door that it opens), it can be hard to understand the difficulties of living without these advantages. I suspect many EAs fall into one or more of these categories.
This is after state taxes and federal taxes, although of course the details will vary. This assumes no IRA, 401(k), or similar investments.
This is according to the Economic Policy Institute’s family budget calculator.
EPI’s numbers are somewhat suspect for this purpose in my opinion—it gave me about $975 per month for transportation in the rural county where my parents live for a single person with no kids, which seems high. Other methodological assumptions seem to err on the side of producing too high rather than too low an estimate for basic decent standard of living, like assuming no employer-provided insurance, using the 40th percentile for housing stock, etc.
Good point! I should be a little more skeptical rather than blindly accepting EPI’s numbers. Thanks for pointing this out for me!
This was basically my thinking. I think it is reasonable to keep an emergency fund to cover things like (in particular) unexpected healthcare bills, and that giving away 10% would make this hard to do. My anecdotal experience of high cost of living cities in the US is that it would be challenging to live there on $35k of take home salary.
Of course, in a strictly utilitarian sense, I guess it isn’t “reasonable”, because it’s not more “reasonable” than protecting someone from a deadly case of malaria—but then none of us lives out that maximalist thinking in reality anyway. (E.g. everyone commenting on this post spends at least some money on themselves in a way that could be redirected elsewhere.)
I’m really quite interested in how much disagreement my original comment got, even as a professional promoter of effective giving myself. It’s informative!
Also I hope everyone who is downvote disagreeing with Jack here is giving away at least 10% :D :D :D.
I like this rephrasing, because it makes somewhat clear that if you lack disposable income we aren’t expecting your to put yourself in hardship in order to donate.