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How would you like to buy a $10 Big Mac in Denmark... I was there this week. No thanks. They have a lot of good things going for them, but any country with national unions suffers a lot of strikes and senseless burdens on society / employers. ( including $10 Big Macs).
Many in the USA would like Denmark university costs and GPA requirements. Several countries I have visited PAY a stipend to fulltime students who get FREE tuition.
Sad situation in Australia where HS kids get $18.00 to $25.00 per hour. Bunnings is their Home Depot. You get ZERO help from a $20.00 / hr worker(?). I saw no one working. They say that they only have to look busy, and take home their fat paycheck. The last thing they want to do is help(?) a customer, especially loading trucks no way, Mate!
Actually, a Big Mac cost around $6 in Denmark, and the fast food employees make upwards $20/hr working there. Even if the Big Mac cost $10, it is still less proportional of the pay the fast food worker gets compared to those in the US.
A Big Mac in the US costs around $5, and the average wage for a fast food worker is around $8.65/hr.
Sometimes, people get so focused on the math, they forget about what matters. If Denmark is consistently one of the happiest countries in the world, they are doing something right.
Sometimes, people get so focused on the math, they forget about what matters. If Denmark is consistently one of the happiest countries in the world, they are doing something right.
Denmark is also famous for its flexible labour market, and its restrictive immigration policies. If you want to copy Denmark, then you can't just look at their left wing policies. Also, the reason they can give $17 (110 DKK), is because they have no employer contribution tax and average wages is about $30 an hour.
Hence, voting for a guy like Bernie Sanders will not make US like Denmark. Scandinavia has always cautious, unions never demand large pay rises, and governments restrain spending. That doesn't sound like Sanders or the $15 movement at all. I believe they have more in common with the south american left.
You can't talk about Denmarks wages without mentioning there tax rate, Currently 55.8%, and a 25% sales tax. So the question is what does a $20.00/hour wage equal when compared to US average tax rates. ( note sales taxes differ state to state here in the US).
I believe the average US tax rate is 31.5 and sales taxes run from 0 to 9.46%.
You can't talk about Denmarks wages without mentioning there tax rate
And you can't talk about Denmark's taxes without mentioning their very generous social welfare programs.
Low wage earners in Denmark are demonstrably better off than their US counterparts. The bottom line is that living standards are much flatter than they are in the US, with most of the population near a median living standard that is just as high as ours.
And they work a lot less to obtain it. Check out those slacker Germans!
I worked in Denmark for 20 years and still live there.
Yes, there is no minimum wage; however, there is an official wage schedule to which the public sector and unions adhere to strictly. Yes, raises in wage rates under this schedule have been quite small in recent years, but this is due primarily to the reaction of successive governments to the finance crisis of 2008.
Unions are strong in Denmark. This is because of the development of the concept of Social Democracy , which is shared by all of the major parties and all but one of minority parties. It involves co-operation (not social class conflict) by the big 3: the Federal Government, the unions and big industry. The main features of the relationship between the unions and the other two members of the Big 3 are: job protection, rigid work rules to achieve social and economic stability.
The only, but very important, point of conflict has been due to the increase of low paying non-unionized jobs in the services and construction sector in which both the government and some large services firms are farming out contracts to foreign firms who pay workers at hourly rates far below the official schedule. There has also been a large influx of highly skilled construction workers from the Eastern part of the EU who charge well below Danish prices for building and renovating private and small (and sometimes large) business structures. The unions protest against this vigorously and so do many of the parties, calling it "social dumping". With the latest influx of refugees, the Big 3 have been negotiating a deal that will make it easier to get these people into the labor market. However, the unions protested so vigorously against the idea of special, reduced wage rate, that the final agreement (if it is really final) was greatly watered down.
I'll stop here.
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no way, Mate!
