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Claiming it is all about taxes and transfers is severely twisting the facts. Look up the difference between the lowest paid workers and CEOs in nordic countries

Claiming it is all about taxes and transfers is severely twisting the facts. Look up the difference between the lowest paid workers and CEOs in nordic countries compared to the US. It is a huge difference. Our engineers make about the same as American engineers, our doctors and surgeons make significantly less and so does the CEOs. However the McDonalds workers, shop clerks etc make several times the hourly salary of an American McDonalds worker. So mobility from the bottom to the top might be no better, but the need to do move is far less as people make decent wages across the whole spectrum. It isn't purely about money either. The lower percentage of American have significantly more problems in terms of education, knowledge, health, government influence etc than their Nordic peers.

exelius 10y ago
> Claiming it is all about taxes and transfers is severely twisting the facts. Look up the difference between the lowest paid workers and CEOs in nordic countries compared to the US. It is a huge difference. But that's likely due to the system of taxes and transfers. The government subsidizes low-end jobs in the form of minimum wage laws; and it makes far less sense for a company to continue to hike the pay of its CEO when 75% of that money goes directly to the government in the form of taxes.
- nerdponx 10y ago
  Sorry to nitpick, but a minimum wage isn't a subsidy, it's a price floor. Different things.
- bjelkeman-again 10y ago
  FYI there are no minimum wage laws in the Nordic countries [1], including Denmark. But there are collective bargaining processes with unions which effectively set a minimum floor for a lot of jobs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_count...
NinjaViking 10y ago
The socioeconomic divide in the Nordic countries is mostly between the property-owning elite and working people, not between different working classes.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  And that is a recent (80s) creation, as the property market was deregulated.
paulsutter 10y ago
I just returned from Norway and I can say that whatever they are doing in The Nordic countries, it's working. What a wonderful place, on many levels. The recent post A Swede Returns to Silicon Valley from Beijing said it well: "My first experience of the States and of Silicon Valley was absolutely soul-crushingly disappointing. I landed in San Francisco and felt like I had traveled back in time. Far from the expected glass towers of a technological utopia, what I found was a surprisingly run down city that reminded me of traveling in Eastern Europe. It seemed to be all pot and potholes"
- jazzyk 10y ago
  Not to take anything away from Norway (it is a nice country), but impressions based on a short vacation stay are not really comparable to living there - working, renting/buying, social interactions, etc. Also, Norway is one of these lucky countries with a lot of oil and not a lot of people :-)
  - paulsutter 10y ago
    Happiest countries according to UN, top 5: Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Finland. The US ranks 13. Norway is the only one of these with oil. Check for yourself where the other oil countries show on the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report (Yay Switzerland for giving a little competition to the Nordics)
    - jazzyk 10y ago
      1. These are all small, homogenous, quiet countries 2. The UN index is really more of a "quality of life" index, with very strange/subjective criteria. For example, if you sort by the "Freedom to make life choices" column, Uzbekistan comes out on top, with Cambodia in third place. NOt buying it. 3. Another view (from a left-leaning newspaper, typically sympathetic to the Nordics) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/scandinavian-miracle-brutal-truth-denmark-norway-sweden https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/scandinavian-m...
deleted 10y ago
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smitherfield 10y ago
> Our engineers make about the same as American engineers ... the McDonalds workers, shop clerks etc make several times the hourly salary of an American McDonalds worker. This is not accurate. I've occasionally researched positions in Europe, and while I haven't looked at Denmark specifically, mid/senior-level software developer salaries tend to be around $45,000/year (or even less), which, before taxes, is about half of what's typical here in the Boston area, and a quarter of what's typical in the SF Bay Area.[0] Many European developers emigrate to America; next to no American developers emigrate to Europe. I don't know what Danish fast food employees and store clerks earn, but I doubt they make more than software developers ($45,000/year is about $22/hour), so they definitely don't make "several times" what their American equivalents do. Depending on the local job market and cost of living, a typical American entry-level salary for a new employee is about $10 (9 EUR)/hour, while a junior manager or semi-skilled worker would make $15-$25 (13.50-23.50 EUR), and a senior hourly manager or skilled worker would make at least $20 (18 EUR). Unionized and/or government employees make substantially more (especially factoring in benefits), although those positions are a lot harder to come by. Keep in mind that the tax rates are far lower, possibly even negative depending on credits,[1][2] prices are also much lower, and, contrary to European popular belief, there actually are extensive federal and state social welfare programs for the low-income, including free healthcare.[3] Now, I wouldn't say that people in those positions are making what I as an upper-middle-class professional consider a "good" living, but it's fairly comparable to other first-world countries. There's a reason the only Americans working in Europe are rich expats, not migrant workers sweeping floors and waiting tables. Relatively speaking, the main socioeconomic problems in America are not so much that any of the people who have jobs are uniquely poorly-compensated, so much as chronic unemployment, downwards social mobility, the factors that contribute to those,[4] and that middle-class families must now take on a small fortune in real estate and college debt to raise children to the same middle-class standard of living.[5] [0] The only place I've looked at that's even somewhat competitive salary-wise is Switzerland, the one country in Western Europe that's even more capitalist than America is. Also the only country I've ever visited where (driving 175 km or so) I never saw any visible poverty at all (or anywhere that didn't appear to be both prosperous and growing). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_tax_credit#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_tax_credit#United_States [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid [4] Globalization/deindustrialization/automation, crime, broken families, drugs, etc. [5] And it's still more difficult for those lower on the ladder, who can't take on that much debt.

exelius 10y ago

> Claiming it is all about taxes and transfers is severely twisting the facts. Look up the difference between the lowest paid workers and CEOs in nordic countries compared to the US. It is a huge difference. But that's likely due to the system of taxes and transfers. The government subsidizes low-end jobs in the form of minimum wage laws; and it makes far less sense for a company to continue to hike the pay of its CEO when 75% of that money goes directly to the government in the form of taxes.

nerdponx 10y ago
Sorry to nitpick, but a minimum wage isn't a subsidy, it's a price floor. Different things.
bjelkeman-again 10y ago
FYI there are no minimum wage laws in the Nordic countries [1], including Denmark. But there are collective bargaining processes with unions which effectively set a minimum floor for a lot of jobs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_count...

NinjaViking 10y ago

The socioeconomic divide in the Nordic countries is mostly between the property-owning elite and working people, not between different working classes.

digi_owl 10y ago
And that is a recent (80s) creation, as the property market was deregulated.

paulsutter 10y ago

I just returned from Norway and I can say that whatever they are doing in The Nordic countries, it's working. What a wonderful place, on many levels. The recent post A Swede Returns to Silicon Valley from Beijing said it well: "My first experience of the States and of Silicon Valley was absolutely soul-crushingly disappointing. I landed in San Francisco and felt like I had traveled back in time. Far from the expected glass towers of a technological utopia, what I found was a surprisingly run down city that reminded me of traveling in Eastern Europe. It seemed to be all pot and potholes"

jazzyk 10y ago
Not to take anything away from Norway (it is a nice country), but impressions based on a short vacation stay are not really comparable to living there - working, renting/buying, social interactions, etc. Also, Norway is one of these lucky countries with a lot of oil and not a lot of people :-)
- paulsutter 10y ago
  Happiest countries according to UN, top 5: Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Finland. The US ranks 13. Norway is the only one of these with oil. Check for yourself where the other oil countries show on the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report (Yay Switzerland for giving a little competition to the Nordics)
  - jazzyk 10y ago
    1. These are all small, homogenous, quiet countries 2. The UN index is really more of a "quality of life" index, with very strange/subjective criteria. For example, if you sort by the "Freedom to make life choices" column, Uzbekistan comes out on top, with Cambodia in third place. NOt buying it. 3. Another view (from a left-leaning newspaper, typically sympathetic to the Nordics) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/scandinavian-miracle-brutal-truth-denmark-norway-sweden https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/scandinavian-m...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

smitherfield 10y ago

> Our engineers make about the same as American engineers ... the McDonalds workers, shop clerks etc make several times the hourly salary of an American McDonalds worker. This is not accurate. I've occasionally researched positions in Europe, and while I haven't looked at Denmark specifically, mid/senior-level software developer salaries tend to be around $45,000/year (or even less), which, before taxes, is about half of what's typical here in the Boston area, and a quarter of what's typical in the SF Bay Area.[0] Many European developers emigrate to America; next to no American developers emigrate to Europe. I don't know what Danish fast food employees and store clerks earn, but I doubt they make more than software developers ($45,000/year is about $22/hour), so they definitely don't make "several times" what their American equivalents do. Depending on the local job market and cost of living, a typical American entry-level salary for a new employee is about $10 (9 EUR)/hour, while a junior manager or semi-skilled worker would make $15-$25 (13.50-23.50 EUR), and a senior hourly manager or skilled worker would make at least $20 (18 EUR). Unionized and/or government employees make substantially more (especially factoring in benefits), although those positions are a lot harder to come by. Keep in mind that the tax rates are far lower, possibly even negative depending on credits,[1][2] prices are also much lower, and, contrary to European popular belief, there actually are extensive federal and state social welfare programs for the low-income, including free healthcare.[3] Now, I wouldn't say that people in those positions are making what I as an upper-middle-class professional consider a "good" living, but it's fairly comparable to other first-world countries. There's a reason the only Americans working in Europe are rich expats, not migrant workers sweeping floors and waiting tables. Relatively speaking, the main socioeconomic problems in America are not so much that any of the people who have jobs are uniquely poorly-compensated, so much as chronic unemployment, downwards social mobility, the factors that contribute to those,[4] and that middle-class families must now take on a small fortune in real estate and college debt to raise children to the same middle-class standard of living.[5] [0] The only place I've looked at that's even somewhat competitive salary-wise is Switzerland, the one country in Western Europe that's even more capitalist than America is. Also the only country I've ever visited where (driving 175 km or so) I never saw any visible poverty at all (or anywhere that didn't appear to be both prosperous and growing). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_tax_credit#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_tax_credit#United_States [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid [4] Globalization/deindustrialization/automation, crime, broken families, drugs, etc. [5] And it's still more difficult for those lower on the ladder, who can't take on that much debt.