The New York Times reports that according to federal tax data from 2003 (the most recent year of data available), when it comes to percentage of their annual income given to charities, the middle class are the most generous, not the rich and wealthy:

The least generous of all working-age Americans in 2003, the latest year for which Internal Revenue Service data is available, were among the young and prosperous - the 285 taxpayers age 35 and under who made more than $10 million - and the 18,600 taxpayers making $500,000 to $1 million.

On average these two groups made charitable gifts equal to 0.4 percent of their assets, while people the same age who made $50,000 to $100,000 gave gifts equal to more than 2.5 percent of their investment assets, six times that of their far wealthier peers. . . . The study also found that single men, generally, are more generous than single women. Among the wealthiest singles, men gave 1.5 percent of assets compared with 1.1 percent for women.

To be accurate, the article notes that the biggest disparities are among those 35 and younger, where the rich gave at a much lower rate than their middle class counterparts. But among those 35-50, the middle class still gave at the highest rate, followed by the “super rich” ($10 million and higher), with the “ordinary” rich ($200,000 to $10 million). Finally, among those who are 51-64, the “super rich” gave at the highest rates.

What to make of all of this? The most immediate conclusions are that those who are both young and wealthy are the stingiest. This does not bode well for the future -- as this cohort of the young and affluent grows up, we can just hope that they become less selfish and greedy and become more willing to at least match the rate of giving shown by their middle class peers.