Recently at Big Questions Online, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead answers the question, “Does a culture of thrift cultivate generosity?” with a solid yes, documenting the history of thrift and generosity in the United States and their subsequent and unfortunate decline in recent years:

By the 1960s, however, the coalition of national organizations promoting thrift ceased their activities. Schools gave up their savings programs. And American households increasingly turned to consumer debt rather than savings to finance their wants and needs. The savings rate, which stood in double digits as late as the early 1980s, fell to near zero in 2005 and has since rebounded to a still anemic 4.4 percent.

As a consequence, thrift has lost much of its cultural force. Few schoolchildren today have even heard the word, much less are able to say what it means. A teacher of my acquaintance reports that her students, rich, poor and in-between, customarily throw their loose change into the trash along with their lunch leftovers. Apparently, they are clueless as to the value of their nickels and dimes when their customary medium of exchange is the “swipe” card.

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