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They are lucky to be part of the USA and not cast off to fend for themselves. Without federal money rolling in from the maker states, they'd be even worse off than they are, which is hard to fathom.
I'm not sure what the European equivalent would be. Is Albania in the EU?
LOL try Greece.
By the way, tomfalcons or whatever your name is, I'm not from Mississippi and have never lived there. It's one of only two southern states I haven't lived in (the other one is Florida). Just so you know.
They are lucky to be part of the USA and not cast off to fend for themselves. Without federal money rolling in from the maker states, they'd be even worse off than they are, which is hard to fathom.
I'm not sure what the European equivalent would be. Is Albania in the EU?
Well, the United States is a very diverse country of 320 million people. Sweden is a very homogeneous country of 9 million people. Somehow that fact gets lost in the comparison.
Sweden's poor is richer than America's poor. America's middle class is richer than Sweden's middle class. And America's upper middle class is substantially wealthier than Sweden's upper middle class. That's the ultimate takeaway from the data.
You clearly didn't read the article. The author talks about being surprised by how many people confuse income and wealth. You did just that.
That is not true. 20% of the Swedish population are first or second generation immigrants. If we add the people with one immigrant parent, we are probably up to almost 30%. This is a fact that is often overlooked as people think Sweden is 100% protestant blue-eyed blondes.
America's middle class is wealthier yes, due to lower taxes. But even the Swedish middle-class has benefits, like child subsidies, paid maternal leave, 40 days paid vacation and much more. Sweden is also highly unionised, which is both good and bad, but you always have somebody covering your back.
I read some of the article before I lost my interest. I would've liked to see numbers. Maybe wrong of me commenting on that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
Comparing the U.S. to Scandinavian countries is like comparing New York City public schools to homogeneous suburban school districts (or better yet, private schools). A much bigger and more diverse country will have more of everything.
Sweden is not without its problems, however. Child poverty there is increasing at an alarming rate. This is due in large part to immigration.
You sound more like an American looking at Scandinavia through rose-colored glasses than someone who actually lives there.
Talking about schools, in the larger Swedish cities there's schools that are 95-100% immigrant. Even in my city here in Finland there's schools that are 50% immigrant, and Finland is much more homogenous than Sweden.
Relative poverty is rising, and it's higher than in the other Nordics, but that's relative. The poverty treshold is $19k per person a year, so much higher than in the poverty line in the US. Absolute poverty has been shrinking all the time since the 1960's, recent relative poverty is due to the middle class becoming in % more wealthier than the lower class.
I'm not claiming our system is perfect, it's sometimes too rigid and bureaucratic, and should support small businesses more, but I prefer this one rather than the US one. And I also agree there's some elements that we could learn from the US.
Comparing the U.S. to Scandinavian countries is like comparing New York City public schools to homogeneous suburban school districts (or better yet, private schools). A much bigger and more diverse country will have more of everything.
It'd be interesting to compare white non-hispanic eduation and income with Scandinavia.
Yes, but unlike any other developed nation, the US is the only one where a middle class family with health insurance has to go begging on tv for help with medical bills, or face bankruptcy. It happens over and over. I see it on our local news. The US can't even bother to fix that, because every time we try, the blowback invariably comes from all the jerrymandered red states. And guess where most of those are? Hint: Mississippi is in the dead center of it.
This is exactly what is going on but your post is conveniently being ignored. The slightly higher average income does not make up for the far higher costs of living when factoring in health care, education or other expenses which puts the US far below most other western countries in purchasing power. So, looking again at the statistic, even a middle class Swedish is far richer than a middle class American.
This is exactly what is going on but your post is conveniently being ignored. The slightly higher average income does not make up for far higher costs of living when factoring in health care, education or other expenses which puts the US far below most other western countries in purchasing power. So, looking again at the statistic, even a middle class Swedish if far richer than a middle class American.
For the 1/500 families that this scenario happens to this may be true (less so since Americans have Obamacare now) but for the other 499/500 families they are far richer than the average Swede. Go to Sweden and see their homes. They are clearly poorer and that's ok because they are content with it. It is extremely unlikely that an American family will receive game-changing medical bills that force them to sell their home or car, etc. It happens but you make it sound like it's to be expected. I have lived in both Europe and the US and Canada and the US is definitely the best. You have the opportunity to do anything there, something that many of the "native" Americans take for granted.
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