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It really depends on the situation. I prefer to donate money to children's hospitals and institutions of that sort.
Most of the time when a bum asks you for money to buy a hamburger they'll go buy booze or drugs. I also read a few articles that a lot of bums make more money a year than most people do at a regular job. I can't find an article now, but I read somewhere that some panhandlers in Toronto make over $100k/year, not sure how true that is.
Here's a quote from one of the articles
http://www.straightdope.com/columns...do-beggars-make
| quote: | | a journalist who briefly lived on the street in Toronto working as a panhandler . . . reported that panhandlers can earn more than $200 per day . . . These differences may be partly explained by the fact that high-earning panhandlers were presumably less likely to participate in our survey, and these individuals may have formed the basis for Stackhouse's observations. Our results may be more representative of the majority of panhandlers who earn lesser amounts. |
| quote: | | Estimates vary from a couple of dollars (U.S.) a day on the low end, to $20 to $50 a day in the mid-range, to about $300 a day on the high end. Women, especially those who have children with them, and panhandlers who appear to be disabled tend to receive more money. For this reason, some panhandlers pretend to be disabled and/or war veterans. Others use pets as a means of evoking sympathy from passersby. Panhandlers' regular donors can account for up to half their receipts. |
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