The people of Utah as the most generous in America. According to a new poll from Gallup:
Utah leads U.S. states in reported charitable giving, with nearly half of its residents saying they had donated money and volunteered their time to an organization in the previous month.
Along with Utah, were 48% had given money and volunteered time: Minnesota (41%), Hawaii (39%), South Dakota (39%), New Hampshire (38%), Kansas (38%), Illinois (38%), Montana (36%), Idaho (36%). These states are primarily located in the Norther Plains were population density is low, unemployment is low, and a large percent of people are happy to live in the states where they are now. Illinois stands out because it is one of the old industrial states, and has had relatively high unemployment over the course and since the recession.
At the other end of the spectrum sit Nevada and Kentucky:
The percentage of those donating money and volunteering time was below 30% in 10 states — Nevada (24%), Kentucky (24%), New York (26%), Mississippi (26%), Arizona (25%), Arkansas (28%), North Carolina (28%), West Virginia (28%), Rhode Island (29%), and Louisiana (29%).
These “least generous” states obviously sit mostly in the Deep South. However, joining them is Rhode Island, an old industrial state that has had high unemployment since the start of the recession.
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Gallup reports that generosity is linked to a sense of well-being:
Gallup has found that people with higher well-being are more likely to give back to their communities — whether it be their time, money, or help to strangers — and this relationship is true as well for states with lower well-being scores.
But the most impressive finding has to do the character of many Americans:
While certain states outshine others in giving back to their communities, Americans as a whole do show impressive figures for their acts of kindness compared with the rest of the world.
This is not an unusual observation about Americans, but the point is still heartening.
Methodology: Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted June 27 to Dec. 4, 2013, with a random sample of approximately 600 adults per state, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states.
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