You know what, you have a good point. It’s not really productive for me to focus so much on the particular percentage. The important part of ‘Giving what we can” here is “what we can,” and I think basically any nonzero percentage is great, and it’s a very personal decision and you’re right that needling people over numbers is bad.

But I don’t think you are right to say that most people are so financially insecure that they cannot give any money away at all. Actually, most Americans (typically something like 60%) do give to charity, and the bottom fifth in wealth donate the highest proportion of their wealth (about 4.5% iirc). In high-income countries a median income makes you somewhere among the richest 5% of people on Planet Earth. By their own admission, 90% of working Americans would sacrifice some income for more meaningful work. I really do actually think that most Americans can donate something, but if your point is that you think 5% of income is too high then then I’m willing to agree that maybe that isn’t right for everybody. Not to get to hung up on numbers, but I will concede that 5% is not “barely noticeable” for most people. But 1% probably is, and there are several “pledges” that use this instead.

I think it is more important to impress upon the affluent that they are not holding up their share and could be giving substantially more than they do than to give some blanket amount that even low-income folks should feel bad about not giving. Poor people are already doing more than rich people proportionally!

That was my purpose here, was to kind of break down the assumption of somebody who by their own commentary lives comfortably and simply doesn’t seem interested in charitable giving, using their employees as a dubious shield. If that came across as overzealous then I apologize to all. I went ahead and struck through some portions that upon further reflection I don’t feel good about standing behind.

At the same time, I would appreciate it if you (as in anybody reading) please do seriously consider signing the GWWC pledge.