How Generous Is Barrington?
The Chronicle of Philanthropy has released detailed information by state, county, town and zip code; Barrington's generosity is mixed.
Just how philanthropic are Barrington residents?
The Chronicle of Philanthropy's "How America Gives" study released Monday morning, Aug. 20, provides a statistical picture of how generous Barrington residents are based on their 2008 tax returns -- the latest available from the IRS.
The total amount of money donated to charitable endeavors in 2008 -- $24.1 million -- puts Barrington in the top 4 percent nationally: 1,100 out of 28,725 communities, according to the study.
The percentage of average "discretionary income" given, however -- $77,050 -- was only 3.4, which ranked Barrington lower than the U.S. percentage of 4.7, lower than the Bristol County percentage of 4.1 but a bit more than the RI percentage of 3.1.
Discretionary income is described by the study as the amount of money left "after paying their taxes and covering housing, food, and other essential expenses."
By income level, the most generous givers in Barrington were in the study's lowest income bracket of $50,000 to $99,999 -- 5 percent with an average contribution of $1,592 based on discretionary income of $32,153.
The next most generous givers were in the $200,000 and up income bracket -- 4.5 percent with an average contribution of $16,648 based on average discretionary income of $367,456.
The least generous Barrington givers were in the $100,000 to $199,999 income bracket -- 3.3 percent with an average contribution of $2,731 based on average discretionary income of $82,611.
| Geographic Area | Median Discretionary Income | Percentage Donated | Dollar Amount Donated | |
| Barrington | $77,050 | 3.4 | $2,589 | |
| Bristol County |
$50,191 | 4.1 | $2,039 | |
| Rhode Island |
$53,181 | 3.1 | $1,666 | |
| United States | $54,783 | 4.7 | $2,564 |
The study is based on exact dollar amounts released by the Internal Revenue Service that show the value of charitable deductions claimed by American taxpayers in 2008.
Detailed data is searchable by zip code.
While The Chronicle used averages to compare towns, you may also search by income bracket.
Manifold Witness
1:42 pm on Monday, August 20, 2012
There are problems with the data. Not the least of which is that it is from 2008.
http://philanthropy.com/article/How-The-Chronicle-Compiled-Its/133667/
LCM
3:13 am on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
I am concerned that they were not savvy enough to set MS Excel to not drop the leading zeroes in the ZIP code data. Makes me wonder about the dataset as a whole!
Gary Morse
7:27 am on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Our town council has mandated that we be generous.
In the July 30, 2012 town council meeting, council President Speakman stated that in 2008, the council voted to provide to the Sweetbriar residential affordable housing a tax break of about 1/10th what everybody else in town pays.
For herself, she said that this was a discretionary act of the council, not a mandate.
I'd say we are plenty generous to be handing out these kinds of property tax breaks to any residential housing. It is also unfair to those in town living on moderate incomes and have to pay the full burden of their own property taxes.
People living in affordable housing can have up to $75,000 in annual household income per the US Census data.
38% of our households in town have less than $75,000 in total household income per the same 2010 US census data.
I'd say the town council has made us all very generous.
Pledgling
9:30 pm on Monday, October 8, 2012
garymm I agree $75,000 in household income is too high. They should change the income limits. Maybe, according to Joel Hellmann, that is why everybody has new cars.