San Francisco Bay Area Wealthy Give Less

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Los Angelenos are the most generous people in California when it comes to giving to charities.

Affluent people in the Southern California metropolis gave almost twice as much as their counterparts in the Bay Area and other parts of the state in 2004, according to a new report.

The study was conducted by the San Francisco philanthropic research organization NewTithing Group, based on 2004 tax data, the most recent available. It found that of Californians earning $200,000 or more, the median income tax filer in Los Angeles County gave most generously, donating nearly $5,000. That was roughly 1 percent of the median filer's investment asset wealth.

By contrast, the median affluent tax filer in the Bay Area, excluding Silicon Valley, gave $3,536, which represented roughly 0.5 percent of that filer's $680,774 in investment wealth.

Median giving as a percentage of investment assets for tax filers in Silicon Valley was a bit lower than in the rest of the Bay Area, but also roughly 0.5 percent. Affluent tax filers in Silicon Valley had a median of about $600,000 in investment assets and median charitable contributions of $2,800.

Imagine that.