Many of America's poorest communities dig deepest for charity

The gist:

> When it comes to charitable giving in the United States, it's not the wealthy northeast and West Coast communities that contribute at the highest rates. It's the southern states, Utah and parts of Idaho. Forty-eight of the 50 counties whose residents gave the highest proportion of their income to charity in 2013 were located in those areas, according to recently released IRS figures detailing itemized tax returns. Several of the counties reporting the highest rates of giving are in impoverished areas of Mississippi, Texas and Alabama.

And a better visualization (with legend): https://i.redd.it/cecvapivjt0b1.jpg

There is certainly an argument to made that you might expect charitable giving to go down (as a percentage of income) as income goes up. However if you look at poor counties in areas known to be less religious (and wealthier counties in more religious areas) this doesn't really hold up.

Of course 2013 is fairly old data - would be interesting to see the same visualization today. Here is another form of giving as a % of income by county from 2016: https://www.businessinsider.com/most-charitable-counties-us-...