Why red states aren’t necessarily more charitable than blue states after all

When the Chronicle of Philanthropy released an analysis of charitable giving in America earlier this month, it included one surprisingly consistent finding: Red states contributed the most.

As we reported at the time, 19 of the 20 most charitable states voted for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012. But, it turns out, the Obama states weren’t exactly slouches. In a new, Thursday blog post, Nathan Dietz, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy, reviews a number of measures of civic engagement — beyond simple cash donations — and finds little red-blue divide.

First, while it may be true that red states dominate the ranked state list of charitable giving as a share of income, the difference is not so stark when you add up the residents of all the red and the blue states. Residents of red states gave 3.7 percent of their adjusted gross income to charity, compared to 2.7 percent in blue states.

But blue state residents even beat their red-state counterparts along some measures. A larger share of people in blue states who itemized their tax returns claimed charitable deductions, according to IRS data. And a larger share of blue state residents donated $25 or more to charity, according to 2012 Census data. Turning away from money, Dietz found that a very slightly larger share of residents of blue states volunteer and put in more volunteer hours per capita than those living in red states.

While red states can claim ownership of the top of the ranked state list of charitable giving as a share of income, blue states have plenty to brag about, too. Of course, the red-blue dichotomy itself misses a key point: no state is monolithic. Plenty of Democrats live in red states and vice versa.