Donating to help fight income inequality

October 1, 2024 9:11 AM

How? Where? What organization, please? I'd most like to have an impact at the very start of the chain -- something that can help with the root of the problem, where I would consider something like the Innocence Project, for example, to be at the opposite end. Hoping for something to address the cause more than the outcomes.
posted by troywestfield to Society & Culture (11 answers total)

You could support unions, co-operatives and organize for a general strike.

Or following Maimonides, give directly to one person you know (or anonymously) who is trapped in a low wage position--so that they can start a business, or have some time to care for family, or seek a higher paying job.
posted by nowhere_sparrow at 9:22 AM on October 1 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You can donate to organizations that help people get housing. People can't get any kind of stable work if they don't have stable housing. Lack of stable housing has intergenerational effects - it's hard for kids to stay in school if their family isn't stably housed. Housing instability causes and worsens mental health problems and addictions, making it even harder for people to be economically stable. Housing instability causes chronic illnesses and makes it difficult to treat previously existing ones, so it's easy for someone to go from, eg, managed diabetes to unmanaged diabetes and amputations.

Many non-profits are really struggling because people are more broke now and boomers tended to have stable "I give X annually to this organization" donation patterns and younger folks don't.

You can make a big difference to an organization if you can commit to a regular donation even if it is not large.
posted by Frowner at 9:31 AM on October 1 [2 favorites]

I don't think anything that makes it less likely that someone will be poor is starting at the start of the chain for income inequality. Like helping someone get housing or helping young kids stay in school or anything like that helps those people to not be poor but that doesn't address income inequality it just helps those particular people not be poor. That isn't income inequality.

If you think about what income inequality is, it's the shape of the ladder of positions that are available for people to stand on. We can have a society lots and lots of positions low on then some WAAY higher up and then very few WAAAAAAAY higher up and then just like 3 WAAAAAAAAY higher up (high income inequality). Or we could have a ladder where the rungs are all evenly spaced and three people stand on each rung (kind of middle income inequality). Or you could have a ladder where there are a handful of people on the lowest run and then the overwhelming majority of of people hang out kind of middle-high and a handful are a bit higher than that and that's everybody (low income inequality). Or you could have everybody standing on the same rung (no income inequality).

If you think about helping people do things like "stay in school" or "go to college" or "find a place to live so they can get a stable job" or "borrow a suit for job interviews" or "learn job interview skills" etc. etc. that doesn't change income inequality, it just changes which rung that person gets to stand on. But guess what?The ladder is unchanged. If that person gets the middle manager job, then someone else doesn't get to stand on that rung. Income inequality remains unchanged. If we, as a society, support every single person in getting all the education they are capable and interested in getting, then there are going to be lots and lots of people with Masters Degrees and JDs and PhDs working minimum wage jobs. We've already seen credential inflation happen -- lots of office jobs that now require degrees used to be done by people with high school diplomas.

So anyway, how can you donate money to change the shape of the ladder? I would say donate to political causes for a living wage? For affordable housing (not to give housing to particular people, but to change the cost of housing for everyone)? For more redistributive tax policies?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:59 AM on October 1 [6 favorites]

Best answer: Mentorship lowers rates of youth crime and delinquency

According to the data, after 18 months, youth in Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) mentoring programs were 54 percent less likely to have been arrested and 41 percent less likely to have engaged in substance use than their peers in a control group.

posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:59 AM on October 1 [3 favorites]

A thing to consider, and one reason that I hesitate to donate to purely political organizations, is that you're inevitably donating to pay the salaries of people who hob-nob with the rich. That's how lobbying works and that's how fund-raising works. It's difficult to find a large political organization (rather than a movement) that doesn't end up staffed by upper middle class people who are readily captured by the non-profit industrial complex.

This is why I like to donate to organizations that directly provide resources - someone who has resources can do their own organizing, can speak up for themselves, rather than hoping that the proposals generated by people of a very different class will benefit them. Organizations become self-perpetuating and the more they're enmeshed with the state, the more likely this is to happen.

A nonprofit that a friend worked for had their mission utterly upended because the foundations and the state decided that they would no longer fund the direct support arm and instead wanted early childhood literacy policy. This is also what happens when you're dependent on foundations and the state.
posted by Frowner at 10:07 AM on October 1 [3 favorites]

Best answer: One question to think about whether you want to target inequality within a country vs. global inequality. While inequality within a country like the US is very high, global poverty is even more extreme. I give to GiveWell, which does lots of research to determine the most cost-effective way to help those in extreme poverty globally. They mainly work on diseases like malaria. There is research suggesting that diseases like malaria are among the root causes of poverty, given that certain countries are at higher risk because of their climates.
posted by catquas at 10:45 AM on October 1 [2 favorites]

For another angle, Habitat for Humanity, which has affiliates in many cities, makes buying a home affordable for people who otherwise never could. As you probably know, intergenerational wealth drives inequality as much or more than incomes do, and owning a home helps people build wealth that they can pass down to their children and grandchildren.
posted by gigondas at 1:45 PM on October 1 [1 favorite]

Best answer: "at the very start of the chain"

Birth control and prenatal healthcare, so that children are born wanted and without disabling preventable congenital illnesses.

In the US, Planned Parenthood helps with both.
posted by Jacqueline at 2:37 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]

Best answer: If you are a young person with access to wealth, Resource Generation does work organizing around this issue and in helping people figure out their approach to wealth redistribution.

Even if you don't have personal or family wealth, they would likely have resources that might be helpful or interesting.
posted by grimace636 at 3:02 PM on October 1

Best answer: Perhaps the Magnolia Mother's Trust, "a guaranteed income initiative that provides low-income Black mothers in Jackson, Mississippi, $1,000 each month for 12 months—no strings attached"?
posted by praemunire at 5:25 PM on October 1

Best answer: GiveDirectly gives money directly to poor people -- mostly, but not all, outside the USA. It has a long-running experiment in Kenya to learn more about universal basic income.
posted by NotLost at 7:42 PM on October 1