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Earning to Give - 80,000 Hours
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3/5
Good(3)Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.
Rating inherited from publication venue: 80,000 Hours
A foundational concept in effective altruism career thinking; relevant context for understanding how EA-aligned individuals may fund AI safety research and organizations rather than working on it directly.
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Importance: 45/100blog posteducational
Summary
80,000 Hours explains the 'earning to give' strategy, where individuals pursue high-paying careers primarily to donate a significant portion of their income to high-impact causes. The article assesses when this approach is most effective compared to direct work, and discusses its role within a broader portfolio of career options for those wanting to do the most good.
Key Points
- •Earning to give involves taking a lucrative career and donating substantially to effective causes, effectively 'buying' the impact of others' direct work.
- •It is most valuable when your donation can fund someone else who can do more good than you could in a direct role.
- •80,000 Hours now generally recommends direct work or advocacy over earning to give for most people, given the current talent gap in high-impact fields.
- •Earning to give remains a strong option for those with rare high-earning skills or those who are not a good fit for direct impact roles.
- •The strategy popularized effective altruism's quantitative approach to career choice and philanthropy in the early 2010s.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| Earning to Give: The EA Strategy and Its Limits | -- | 63.0 |
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Why and how to earn to give | 80,000 Hours Search for: Our new book, a ridiculously in-depth guide to a fulfilling career, is out May 2026. Preorder now
On this page:
Introduction
1 What is earning to give?
2 Why earn to give? 2.1 It gives you flexibility.
2.2 You may be able to have a greater impact through earning to give.
2.3 Earning to give may allow you to work in a field that’s more personally fulfilling compared to other paths.
2.4 In rare cases, it could be a very high-impact career.
3 Common objections to and reasons against earning to give 3.1 Might you do harm in a high-earning career?
3.2 Is there a risk of getting corrupted by a higher-earning career?
3.3 Doesn’t taking a high-earning job signal support for a bad system?
3.4 Isn’t charity ineffective?
3.5 What if I won’t find earning to give motivating?
3.6 What if I think X is higher-impact?
4 Should you earn to give?
5 What’s the best way to earn to give? 5.1 Which jobs are highest-paying?
5.2 What are some of the best options overall?
5.3 Should you give now or later?
5.4 Which charities are most effective to donate to?
Photo by Clay LeConey on Unsplash I was earning more money than I ever had, I was earning more money than my parents. It was like “Wow — I just graduated from college, and I’m able to earn a lot of money.” So to give 50% seemed like the least I could be doing.
Jeff Kaufman on WBUR
One of the ideas for which 80,000 Hours has become most known is called ‘earning to give.’ Table of Contents
1 What is earning to give?
2 Why earn to give? 2.1 It gives you flexibility.
2.2 You may be able to have a greater impact through earning to give.
2.3 Earning to give may allow you to work in a field that’s more personally fulfilling compared to other paths.
2.4 In rare cases, it could be a very high-impact career.
3 Common objections to and reasons against earning to give 3.1 Might you do harm in a high-earning career?
3.2 Is there a risk of getting corrupted by a higher-earning career?
3.3 Doesn’t taking a high-earning job signal support for a bad system?
3.4 Isn’t charity ineffective?
3.5 What if I won’t find earning to give motivating?
3.6 What if I think X is higher-impact?
4 Should you earn to give?
5 What’s the best way to earn to give? 5.1 Which jobs are highest-paying?
5.2 What are some of the best options overall?
5.3 Should you give now or later?
5.4 Which charities are most effective to donate to?
Earning to give is the idea that instead of working directly to tackle a pressing problem, you take a job where you earn more money than you would have otherwise and donate much of the extra to fund others doing effective work on those problems.
The basic case in its favour is that if you’re a better fit for a higher-earning job than one directly working on, say, preventing catastrophic pand
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