New York Tops List of Most-Generous States, Report Finds

New Yorkers give a larger share of their income to charity than residents of any other state, according to a new study.

The report, which takes into account the fact that people living in states with higher costs of living have

less disposable income to donate, found that the average New York household gives more than 7 percent of its available earnings to charity.

The study by the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College also adjusts average incomes to account for the differences in tax rates in the states. It is based on tax and income data from 2004.

After New York, the highest percentages of income was donated by residents of the District of Columbia (6.6 percent), followed by Utah (5.7 percent), California (5.1 percent), and Connecticut (4.8 percent). The states with the lowest percentages of contributions were North Dakota (1.8 percent), West Virginia (2.1 percent), Vermont (2.2 percent), and South Dakota and Iowa (both at 2.4 percent). The national average was 3.6 percent.

The study was the second annual report on the subject commissioned by the Boston Foundation, which decided to pay for the research last year after repeated studies had shown New Englanders in general and Massachusetts residents in particular to be among the least generous in the nation.

But none of those earlier studies had adjusted the raw giving data collected by the Internal Revenue Service to reflect the impact that the high cost of living in Massachusetts has on its residents’ ability to donate to charity. (The Chronicle conducted a study in 2003 that did make those adjustments.)

“Significant differences in tax burdens, the cost of living, as well as religious tradition and other elements, must be taken into consideration in order to meaningfully compare the giving of residents in one state to another,” Paul G. Schervish, director of the center, said in a statement accompanying the report.

The report is available on the foundation’s Web site.