’Tis the season for giving, and Maryland ranks third and Pennsylvania ninth in WalletHub’s charitable giving study. The latest World Giving Index shows that the United States is the sixth most generous country in the world. U.S. donors in 2024 still gave over $592 billion to charity, with 66% of the funds coming directly from individuals, according to Giving USA.
The link to the WalletHub study is here, https://wallethub.com/edu/most-and-least-charitable-states/8555.
Americans do more than just reach in their pockets to help others, though. They also contribute their time — and plenty of it. Nearly 76 million people volunteer in the U.S., serving a combined total of roughly 5 billion hours per year, the equivalent of $167.2 billion of service.
In the spirit of inspiring altruism, WalletHub determined the most charitable of the 50 states by comparing them across 17 key indicators of charitable behavior. The data set ranges from the volunteer rate to the share of income donated to the share of sheltered homeless.
As for Maryland and Pennsylvania, Maryland ranked third in charitable giving and 20th in volunteer service, while Pennsylvanians ranked 12th on both the giving and volunteer scores, ranking ninth nationwide overall.
Want to give back instead of receiving this holiday season? Use WalletHub’s Charity Calculator to help determine how best to pitch in, depending on resources and availability.
“The most charitable states aren’t just the places where people give the largest raw amounts of money,” said Chip Lupo WalletHub analyst. “The share of the population contributing and the percentage of their individual incomes they’re willing to use to help others are big factors in showing how charitable people are. In addition, many people can’t afford to give much money, especially due to the influence of inflation, but they generously donate their time, which is just as important.”
Maryland is the third-most charitable state, according to the study, with the highest percentage of taxpayers who donate money to charity, at over 16%. Marylanders donate, on average, roughly 2% of their adjusted gross income, the seventh-most in the nation. The state also has the eighth-highest number of top-rated charities per capita – these are charities endorsed by clients, volunteers, and their community.
Maryland also has the sixth-highest share of residents who collect, make, or distribute clothing for charitable purposes, and the state shelters roughly 83% of its homeless population, according to WalletHub.
Another way people in Maryland demonstrate their interest in charity is through their Google searches. They rank among the top 15 states when it comes to Google search interest for the query “charity,” “volunteer,” “non-profit organizations,” “charitable donations,” and “charitable organizations.”
