What is charity? Charity is giving to others what belongs to you. When you donate to charity, you experience happiness. Do you know why? Because when you let go of something you love, you bring happiness to others. For most people, that thing is money.
Even if you have the slightest idea of taking something away from others, you yourself create various obstacles and difficulties in your life. Maybe Americans are less generous than they seem. However, economics suggests a different explanation. Americans' charitable giving a hundred years ago was a very different picture.
Back then, numerous private charities helped the destitute, the insane, single mothers and the elderly. Some served the poor of specific nationalities or religions. Some provided coal in winter or work, food or clothing. Private charities usually offered “outdoor humanitarian aid” outside the nursing home or nursing home.
Few private charities work with the poor, and those that do tend to work in extreme situations where the people they're trying to help don't qualify for public aid or aren't interested in working in the public system for social or psychological reasons. However, with the drastic increase in public aid during the Great Depression, which began in late 1929, private charities were “displaced”. As public aid continued to increase and then remained in effect, many private charities that helped the poor simply withdrew, presumably because they could no longer generate contributions.