There are good reasons for some people to not give at some points in their lives — for instance, if it leaves someone with insufficient resources to live a comfortable life, or if it would interfere strongly with the impact someone could have in their career. However, I expect these situations will be the exception rather than the rule within the current EA community, [6]and even where they do apply there are often ways around them (e.g. exceptions to the Pledge for students and people who are unemployed).
I disagree with the phrasing ‘exception rather than the rule’. To me this suggests that there are only rare and uncommon reasons for failing to donate at least 10%.
But in footnote 6 you say “the 2022 EA survey found that ~50% of respondents were full-time employed”.
If this survey is representative, this suggests that a small majority (or sizable minority) of EAs could plausibly not be in a position to donate at least 10% (of those full-time employed, some proportion will be on low-income salaries, or trying to save up to ensure they have a big enough ‘personal runway’).
I don’t think one needs to be on a fulltime salary to be in a position to give, e.g. among the surveyed population I would expect many/most of the people who are part-time employed (~12%), self-employed (~11%) and retired (~2%) to be able to do so. The majority of other respondents are students, for which the exceptions I refer to in the post can hold (but I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them would be in a position to give >10% as well).
I agree with the overall claims.
However, with regards to Claim 1:
I disagree with the phrasing ‘exception rather than the rule’. To me this suggests that there are only rare and uncommon reasons for failing to donate at least 10%.
But in footnote 6 you say “the 2022 EA survey found that ~50% of respondents were full-time employed”.
If this survey is representative, this suggests that a small majority (or sizable minority) of EAs could plausibly not be in a position to donate at least 10% (of those full-time employed, some proportion will be on low-income salaries, or trying to save up to ensure they have a big enough ‘personal runway’).
I don’t think one needs to be on a fulltime salary to be in a position to give, e.g. among the surveyed population I would expect many/most of the people who are part-time employed (~12%), self-employed (~11%) and retired (~2%) to be able to do so. The majority of other respondents are students, for which the exceptions I refer to in the post can hold (but I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them would be in a position to give >10% as well).
Fair point—it might be ‘sizable minority’ then (say 25-40%) rather than small majority who aren’t in a position to give >10%.