Adams County ranked most giving county in the state

The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently released the 2012 Giving Profile for the State of Washington and named Adams County the most giving county in the state.

The data for this conclusion came from the Internal Revenue Service information combined with the census data.

The study took into account Americans tax returns, which itemizes their deductions including charitable gifts.

Adams County’s giving ratio was 4.71 percent as compared to the state average of 3.08 percent.

The county accounted for $4,778,000 total contributions in 2012 with a median contribution of $4,948. Washington state as a whole donated nearly $5 billion.

Adams County has a total population of 18,575 individuals according to this data, and of those individuals their income was taken into account.

In the income bracket breakdown the “up to $25,000” group had a giving ratio of 8.89 percent. The highest income bracket of “$200,000 or more” has a 4.06 percent giving ratio.

They also broke the population of the county down by race, age and religion. For race the county showed having 59.2 percent of individuals identifying as Hispanic or Latino and individuals identifying as White at 38.9 percent.

For age the county includes 34.6 percent of individuals under 18, the next highest percent being 25.1 and representing those who are ages 25 to 44.

As for Religion, the highest in the county were the Latter-day Saints with 12 percent of the population; Catholicism was a close second at 10.8 percent.

Utah showed as the highest giving ratio in the country boasting a 6.61 percent.

Their total contributions totaled $3,303,081,000 and included a median of $6,182.

This state also showed the trend of the lower income bracket donating about double the percentage that the highest income bracket does, in this case 13.45 percent as compared to 6.19 percent.

This state had the same main Religion and same largest age group as Adams County, but their population includes 80.4 percent identifying as White.

This data does recognize that there is a limit on what can be accounted as a charitable donation and knows there could be more being donated than what the IRS data shows.

Examining these pieces of information shows a trend of those in the middle class giving on average double the amount that those on the higher earning levels give.