Study discovers Swedes are less well-off than the poorest Americans

Reuters via Haaretz ^ | 5/4/2002 | Reuters

[l33t]

STOCKHOLM - Swedes, usually perceived in Europe as a comfortable, middle class lot, are poorer than African Americans, the most economically-deprived group in the United States, a Swedish study showed yesterday.

The study by a retail trade lobby, published in the liberal Dagens Nyheter newspaper 19 weeks before the next general election, echoed the center-right opposition's criticism of the weak state of Sweden's economy, following decades of almost uninterrupted Social Democratic rule.

The Swedish Research Institute of Trade (HUI) said it had compared official U.S. and Swedish statistics on household income, as well as gross domestic product, private consumption and retail spending per capita between 1980 and 1999.

Using fixed prices and purchasing power parity adjusted data, the median household income in Sweden at the end of the 1990s was the equivalent of $26,800, compared with a median of $39,400 for U.S. households, HUI's study showed.

"Weak growth means that Sweden has lost greatly in prosperity compared with the United States," HUI's president, Fredrik Bergstrom, and chief economist, Robert Gidehag, said.

International Monetary Fund data from 2001 show that U.S. GDP per capita in dollar terms was 56 percent higher than in Sweden, while in 1980, Swedish GDP per capita was 20 percent higher.

"Black people, who have the lowest income in the United States, now have a higher standard of living than an ordinary Swedish household," the HUI economists said.

If Sweden were a U.S. state, it would be the poorest, measured by household gross income before taxes, Bergstrom and Gidehag said.

They said they had chosen that measure for their comparison to get around the differences in taxation and welfare structures. Capital gains such as income from securities were not included.

The median income of African American households was about 70 percent of the median for all U.S. households, while Swedish households earned 68 percent of the overall U.S. median level.

This means that Swedes stood "below groups, which, in the Swedish debate, are usually regarded as poor and losers in the American economy," Bergstrom and Gidehag said.

Between 1980 and 1999, the gross income of Sweden's poorest households increased by just over 6 percent, while the poorest in the United States enjoyed a three times higher increase, HUI said.

If the trend persists, "things that are commonplace in the United States will be regarded as the utmost luxury in Sweden," the authors said. "We are not quite there yet, but the trend is clear."

According to HUI figures, during the period 1998-1999, U.S. GDP per capita was 40 percent higher than in Sweden, while U.S. private consumption and retail sales per capita exceeded Swedish levels by more than 80 percent.

The HUI economists attributed the much bigger difference in consumption and sales mainly to the fact that U.S. households pay themselves for education and health care, services that are tax-financed and come for free or at low user charges in Sweden.

According to recent opinion polls Sweden's Social Democrats are comfortably ahead of the center-right opposition in the run-up to the September 15 elections.

[eleni121]

I find it hard to believe there is really more in other places

More state controlled economic sectors? Absolutely! That's what I thought until I started traveling abroad...especially in Europe and South America especially Argentina.

[anguish]

if an American showed up on a Swede's doorstep one fine morning claiming to be a long lost relative, what sort of reception would he get?

You'd probably get a warm welcome (I know my family would in that situation), but I think you'd better have more to say than that you "assume they're related" to you. But of course, nobody can guarantee that the Dahlboms in Småland will greet you with open arms. It's always fun to travel back through your familys history (I'm related to the tsars of Russia myself) and if you'd wish to explore your Swedish roots there are plenty of good organisations where you can get help. I can't give you any references right now though, but if your interested I can see if I can give you some pointers.

[anguish]

What is it about some Scandinavians that they must "share" their atheisim with strangers?

I've met plenty of people - Scandinavians, Europeans, Americans, Africans, etc - that just had to share their religion with others. Perhaps for the same reason others share their atheism?

[PaulKersey]

I>'ve met plenty of people - Scandinavians, Europeans, Americans, Africans, etc - that just had to share their religion with others. Perhaps for the same reason others share their atheism?

That's true. But the others do have something to offer besides nothing.

[anguish]

But the others do have something to offer besides nothing

First of all I didn't mean to offer you anything (not even "nothing") with my brief description of myself besides an idea of who I am. Second, I think you've got the wrong idea about atheism. It's not "nothing" as the big questions otherwise answered by God, Allah or whatever diety you worship are given other answers.

[RockinRight]

Yet they still appear to be voting for the same socialists...