New York is the national leader in charitable giving in a new state by state ranking issued last week by the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College.

New York residents gave 7% of their income to charity, outpacing Washington D.C., (6.6%), Utah (5.7%), California (5.1%), and Connecticut (4.8%). The national average was 3.6%. The lowest-ranked state was North Dakota, where the share of income given to charity was 1.8%.

The authors, John Havens and Paul Schervis, claim the study is the first to weigh factors such as tax burden, cost of living, and the supply of nonprofits in the state. It follows a 10-year-old study issued by the Catalogue for Philanthropy called the Generosity Index, which does not adjust figures for financial capacity — and ranked New York 33 of the 50 states. (New England states, which ranked even lower, pushed for the new study.)

“This new study provides a more accurate picture of state giving, but the Catalogue can take the credit for starting the discussion,” said Melissa Brown, the editor of Giving USA, a publication of the Center for Philanthropy at Indiana University.

The study can be useful to fund-raisers who are raising money nationally, the editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Stacy Palmer, said. She noted the Chronicle’s own survey of generosity by county, published in 2003, had New York at the top and in general found that counties with large black populations were some of the most generous.

Nonprofit leaders in New York City said the study underscored the region’s strength. The acting director of the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers, Tamara Kreinin, said, “Our region has the largest concentration of philanthropic capital in the world.”

The president of the New York Community Trust, Lori Slutsky, said, “Most people assume it is driven by Wall Street, but it really comes out of the range and diversity of how people make their living. We have a fund established through the estate of a cab driver.”

States that did well in the survey are ones in which local foundations and nonprofits have invested in donor education and the promotion of philanthropy.

Ms. Palmer and Ms. Brown had similar suggestions for advancing the study: they would like to see a breakdown of charitable giving by income level and a breakdown of the types of charities people support.

“Some people would measure generosity as giving for people you don’t know, as opposed to a group that you are a part of. We don’t have enough data state by state to look at it that way,” Ms. Brown said.

A co-author of the Boston College study, Paul Schervis, said it was important not to use the rankings to make moral judgments about the generosity of Americans. “Farmers may tend to hold more money in reserve because their livelihood is so vulnerable to the whims of weather. It would be inappropriate to describe farmers as less generous as a result,” Mr. Schervis said.

Ms. Slutsky, who had not read the studies published last week, nonetheless put the findings into perspective. “I don’t ever imagine having enough charitable money to meet every charitable need presented, and that’s why New Yorkers keep on giving,” she said.

The Catalogue for Giving study this year included a 10-year analysis of itemized charitable giving. For the nation as a whole over the decade, the number of taxpayers rose 12%; their average income increased 44%; and their average giving rose 64%. In New York, the 10-year-view shows that giving spiked after September 11, decreased, and picked up again.