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How do you square that with somewhere like Denmark with it's equally abysmal yet they have way less working hours and a large social safety net?
by jsonne 8y ago
How do you square that with somewhere like Denmark with it's equally abysmal yet they have way less working hours and a large social safety net?
- anoncoward111 8y agoI've visited Denmark before as an American :) It's a pretty nice place-- sure there are pretty generous payments to most members of society, but there is still some petty crime and different social classes and lack of major mobility. I am not precisely sure if they have less working hours. I mean, anecdotally, I don't know any Danes who have 10 minute commutes working 4 days a week, 6 hours a day or something like that, and making $7,000 post tax per month. Like, that sounds mythical in America and in Denmark. I would just equate Denmark's birthrate either to cultural differences (white birth rates are lower than arab, latino, african etc), or to the same pressures that American workers have-- the Danish pressures are just slightly less extreme.
- hvidgaard 8y agoThe average distance from home to work for a Dane i ~21km (13 miles). Most Danes have a regulated average work week of 37 hours (unless otherwise is specified in the contract), and we have strong unions.
- rsynnott 8y ago> ure there are pretty generous payments to most members of society, but there is still some petty crime and different social classes and lack of major mobility. By most metrics, Denmark has one of the largest degrees of social mobility in the world. The US usually comes out worst or second-worst in the developed world (the UK is gaining on it lately).
- anoncoward111 8y agothe rent, salary, taxation, net worth and expectancy data for denmark's 5 million danes is comporable to the AVERAGE american city/suburban resident of similar background in the USA we just have 100 million people that are literally in debt up to their eyeballs and die horrible unhealthy deaths every year. im not saying this system is justified, im saying it skews our statistics. the US is like south africa-- a deliberately created class distinction between the rich and the poor which heavily skews along racial lines, but not always.
- eli_gottlieb 8y ago>im not saying this system is justified, im saying it skews our statistics. the US is like south africa-- a deliberately created class distinction between the rich and the poor which heavily skews along racial lines, but not always. Well, at least we're openly admitting the US is a caste society by design now.
- rsynnott 8y agoSo, wait, are you saying "the US doesn't have a social mobility problem, except for the large social mobility problem it has"? I don't really follow.
- anoncoward111 8y agoThe US absolutely, 100% has a social mobility problem. This social mobility problem is particularly prevalent among the bottom 33% of income earners/wealth owners in US society (aka +100m truly poor people). However, when you control for this group of people (aka remove them from being counted), the US middle class is basically the same as the Danish middle class, in terms of mobility, income, life expectancy and so on.
- Kluny 8y agoDenmark is actually having a baby boom right now. It's still a low absolute birth rate, but it's been higher for the last couple years.
- rubber_duck 8y agoImmigrants included ?
- Broken_Hippo 8y agoIf I remember correctly, Denmark started teaching people about having children along with pregnancy prevention. Simply making sure people knew things led to increased birth rates.