Dennis RomeroWe told you recently about how Los Angeles ranks pretty low nationwide when it comes to holiday gift-giving budgets.
It wasn't an anomaly, unfortunately.
California also ranks low when it comes to charitable giving. Yeah, the state that helped to give rise to reality television, the selfie and the shopping epidemic known as affluenza isn't exactly selfless.
Surprise.
The word comes from personal finance site WalletHub, which says California ranks near the bottom of all the states when it comes to charitable giving.
We came in 48th. Only Louisiana (49th) and Rhode Island (50th) did worse.
WalletHub says it looked at eight metrics nationwide, including volunteerism, the percentage of taxpayers who donated to charity and growth in giving, to come up with its ranking.
The Golden State ranked 35th in volunteering, 36th in “donated income” and 40th in growth in giving, the site says. Only in “volunteering hours per capita” did we see a respectable showing — 21st. Maybe mandatory community service for celebrities is being counted there.
Credit: WalletHub
More than 95 percent of American households give to charity, WalletHub said. The average United States household contributes $2,974 a year. The cumulative American donation to charity in 2014 was a whopping $338 billion, the site says.
The most giving states were Utah (1), Maryland (2), Idaho (3), Oregon (4) and South Dakota, according to the ranking.
“America is a selfless nation,” WalletHub says. California? Not so much.
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