United Way Says County Lags in Giving Despite Wealth

Los Angeles County has one of the nation’s highest rates of high-income households, but donations to charities are much more modest, the United Way reported Tuesday.

The Southland ranks fifth among major metropolitan areas in donations to charities in general, according to tax records analyzed by the United Way of Greater Los Angeles. The area ranks near the bottom when it comes to United Way donations alone.

United Way officials pointed out the discrepancy Tuesday while discussing its “Tale of Two Cities” report, which described Los Angeles as “a city of haves and have-nots,” with more wealthy and more poor households than nearly any other place in America.

The report noted that Los Angeles has a higher gross domestic product than Belgium. Yet it’s also America’s poverty capital.

“We are truly two cities: one of great promise and one of great peril,” United Way researchers concluded.

Overall, this year’s “Tale of Two Cities” report is far more upbeat than two years ago, when the economy suffered from the lingering effects of massive layoffs in the aerospace industry. Now the region is flush with cash from the booming national and local economies.

“We’re saying that while things are getting better, this is time to pay attention to pressing needs,” said Joseph V. Haggerty, United Way’s president. “Things are getting better, but they’re not getting better for everybody.”

But Haggerty’s message evidently isn’t getting across. In its current drive, the United Way has raised $62 million, the equivalent of about $6 for each person in the county, for member organizations such as the Red Cross and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Los Angeles.

That is a contrast with the $20 per person raised in Atlanta and Minneapolis, and $15 per person raised in Chicago, said Haggerty.

He said Atlantans give more to the United Way and other charities because there is a stronger sense of community and more longtime residents. Also, more corporations are headquartered there, he said.

Charities need more money as problems continue to mount, such as the lack of jobs for people being dropped from welfare. In Los Angeles, the challenges are enormous.

“Los Angeles is the nation’s poverty capital with the largest number of poor of any metropolitan area,” the report said. One of every three children live in poverty.

Many parents fail to work themselves out of poverty because of temporary employment, low pay and part-time work. A wage earner who gets $5.75 an hour--the California minimum wage--makes $11,690 a year, far less than the poverty level of $16,450 for a family of four.

The report noted that there are marked inequalities in pay among different races, with African Americans earning the least and white Angelenos earning the most.

More people rent here than anywhere, and they pay the second highest rents in the nation, according to the United Way’s analysis of housing costs. As a result, people crowd into apartments, many of which are in substandard condition.

On top of that, one in three adults didn’t complete high school. Twenty-seven percent of adults, or 1.8 million people, are illiterate, the report said.

The good news is that Los Angeles has the resources to help, if Angelenos so desire.

Los Angeles is the world’s 18th largest economy with a gross regional product of $285 billion, which is slightly smaller than Taiwan’s and larger than Switzerland, Austria and Sweden, the United Way reported.

Contrasting the poverty, Los Angeles has a higher proportion of high-income households than the state or nation, the study said. Six percent of Los Angeles County households earn $150,000 or more, compared to 5% in California and 4% in the rest of the country.

The Los Angeles County median household income of $43,908 is 14% higher than the national median.

For women there’s more good news. More women own businesses in Los Angeles than anywhere in the nation.

On top of that, one in five adults are college graduates, one of the highest rates nationally.

With the county enjoying a strong economy and becoming more cognizant of its poverty, said Haggerty, “Now is the time to invest in the community’s future.”