Generosity, American Style
"Why do they hate us, when we're so generous to them?"
In his latest book, One World: the Ethics of Globalization, Peter Singer corrects some long-standing myths about American generosity.
Myth #1: The United States is the largest and most generous donor to foreign development.
Singer:
Among the developed nations of the world, ranked according to the proportion of their Gross National Product that they give as development aid, the United States comes absolutely, indisputably, last.
Many years ago, the United Nations set a target for development aid of 0.7 percent of Gross National Product. A handful of developed nations -- Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway and Sweden -- meet or surpass this very modest target of giving 70 cents in every $100 that their economy produces to the developing nations. Most of them fail to reach it. Japan, for example, gives 0.27 percent. Overall, among the affluent nations, official development assistance fell from 0.33 percent of their combined GNP in 1985 to 0.22 percent in 2000.
But of all the affluent nations, none fails so miserably to meet the United Nations target as the United States, which in 2000, the last year for which figures are available, gave 0.10 percent of GNP, or just 10 cents in every $100 its economy produces, one-seventh of the United Nations target. That is less in actual U.S. dollars than Japan gives -- about $10 billion for the United States, as compared with $13.5 billion for Japan -- although the U.S. economy is roughly twice the size of Japan's.
And even that miserly sum exaggerates the U.S. aid to the most needy, for much of it is strategically targeted for political purposes. The largest single recipient of U.S. official development assistance is Egypt. (Russia and Israel get even more aid from the United States than Egypt, but it is not classified as development assitance.) Tiny Bosnia and Herzegovina gets a large allocation from the United States than India. Japan, on the other hand, gives to Indonesia, China, Thailand, India, the Philippines, and Vietnam, in that order. India, for instance, gets more than five times as much assistance from Japan as it gets from the United States Only a quarter of U.S. aid, as compared to more than half of Japan's aid, goes to low income countries.(p. 180-1)
[Note: Figures derived from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.]
Myth #2: If private donations are factored in, the United States turns out to be the most generous nation.
Singer:
When I make these points to audiences in the United States, some object that to focus on official aid is misleading. The United States, they say, is a country that does not believe in leaving everything to the government, as some other nations do. If private aid sources were also included, the United States would turn out to be exceptionally generous in its aid to other nations.
So I checked private aid as well. Yes, a higher proportion of the total aid given by the United States is non-government aid than is the case for other nations. But non-government aid everywhere is dwarfed by government aid, and that is true in the United States too, where non-government aid amounts to $4 billion, or about 40 percent of government aid. So adding in the non-government aid takes the United States aid total only from 0.10 percent of GNP to 0.14 percent of GNP. This is still only one-fifth of the modest United Nations target, and not enough to get the United States off the very bottom of the table.(p.181-2)
Myth #3: Still, when measured against other types of expenditure, the United States gives a lot in foreign development aid.
Singer:
While the United States gives $14 billion in private and official development aid each year, annual domestic U.S. spending on alcohol is $34 billion, on tobacco $32 billion, on non-alcoholic beverages, $26 billion, and on entertainment admission and fees, nearly $50 billion. Turning to government spending, rather than general consumer expenditure, the Bush administration has proposed a military budget of $379 billion for the fiscal year 2003, an increase of $48 billion on the previous year's figure. The increase alone is more than four times the amount the government gives to foreign aid.(p.182)
Myth #4: The American public knows these facts, but is unwilling to give more to foreign aid.
Singer:
In 1995 the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, or PIPA, asked Americans what they thought about the amount that the United States was spending on foreign aid. A strong majority of those answering thought that the United States was spending too much on foreign aid and that aid should be cut. That response will make the cynics feel justified in their low opinion of human altruism, but when asked to estimate how much of the federal budget (not of GNP) was devoted to foreign aid, the median estimate -- that is, the one in the middle of all the responses -- was 15 percent. The correct answer is less than 1 percent. And when asked what an appropriate percentage would be, the median response was 5 percent -- an increase on the amount actually spent that is beyond the wildest hopes of any foreign aid advocates on Capitol Hill. A few months later the Washington Post decided to run its own survey to see if the results held up. It got an even higher median estimate, that 20 percent of the federal budget was spent on foreign aid, and a median "right amount" of 10 percent.
[snip]
In 2000, PIPA asked a different sample the same questions. The most striking difference was that the strong majority (64 percent) that had in 1995 wanted U.S. foreign aid cut had shrunk to 40 percent. But when asked how much of the federal budget goes to foreign aid, the public was no better educated than before. The median estimate was 20 percent, the same as in the 1995 Washington Post survey. Only one respondent in 20 gave an estimate of 1 percent or less. Even among those with post-graduate education, the median estimate was 8 percent. Asked what would be an appropriate percentage, the median answer was again the same as that found by the earlier Washington Post survey, 10 percent.(p.182-3)
So the next time someone asks why they hate America, when we're so generous to them, you know what to say.
2:09:32 AM 
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