Comment by hash872 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hash872 | Hacker News Reader

As an American I constantly hear about how the Nordic model of social democracy is superior. I feel like it's underdiscussed that the Nordic countries have very high wealth inequality though. According to 2019 Gini numbers, both the Netherlands and Sweden have more wealth inequality than the US. (1) Denmark, BTW, is quite close to the US- #8 in Gini to America's #4. If wealth inequality is so bad, are the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark doing poorly? I'd like to hear this discussed more.

In terms of income inequality, the US is #61 out of 168 countries by 2020 World Bank numbers. (2) Hardly seems shocking to me. Anyways, just trying to inject some facts into what's usually a quite emotional subject. I hear a lot of comparing how the US is doing now to say 40 or 50 years ago, but less comparing objective stats on the US to other developed countries

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...

Do a present value calculation of the real value of a solid pension. You'll get a value well into the 6 figures, if not 7 figures. Now do a present value calculation of all the health insurance premiums a person will have to pay over their lifetime. And similar for all the other social insurances Nordic citizens get for free.

That's all real wealth that's not calculated in your links.

Or put another way: the Nordic model does not reduce inequality, it reduces the consequences of inequality.

The US spends over a trillion dollars on Social Security annually, plus I believe another $1.4 trillion or so once you add up both Medicare and Medicaid. (Fun fact no one knows, the US now spends more on healthcare for the elderly than the entire famous military budget). So that covers both pensions and healthcare (which are never free for anyone in any country, you obviously have to pay at some point). So once we factor in over 2 trillion dollars of annual US spending on pensions and healthcare, I doubt there's a huge difference there

The USA spends more on healthcare per capita than many other countries, but our life expectancy and general health is worse than other high-income countries.

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2...

And US social security measures also significantly reduce the impact of inequality.

> Do a present value calculation of the real value of a solid pension.

It's irrelevant.

Each Nordic country is different.

Sweden and Denmark's national pension pays out largely similar to American Social Security ($1k-$3k/month)

Finland's appears to cap at around $1.5k/month and the rest is on you.

Norway's is very generous (114% of monthly income), but it's easy to be generous when you are also a petro-state and your pension is backed by the National Oil Fund.

In all these pensions, you have to contribute to the state pension fund in order to receive more than the bare mimimim ($1k/month) at a level largely comparable to Social Security deductions.

It honestly isn't that different than the US SSA, especially factoring in CoL which is California or MA level but average wages are around $30-$50k nominal

The "Nordic Model" that became vogue in American political discourse is the Norwegian model, which is almost entirely subsidized by oil. We may as well copy Saudi's social welfare program then (on a separate note it is actually pretty generous after massive concessions were given after the Arab Spring).

>The "Nordic Model" that became vogue in American political discourse is the Norwegian model, which is almost entirely subsidized by oil. We may as well copy Saudi's social welfare program then (on a separate note it is actually pretty generous after massive concessions were given after the Arab Spring).

Unironically yes. The US is the largest producer of oil and the fourth largest exporter. Use the oil money to fund healthcare.

Norway has 5 million people. The US has 330 million people. It's easier to spread wealth among a small population. This is why Alaska has had a sovereign oil fund since the 70s and Texas since the 90s.

UK state pension is only $1100/mo from age 68

:/

I think wealth inequality numbers can be misleading.

I was on a contract in Stockholm for a bit. There, I worked with some support line people. Working on a support line, they were able to rent a flat, afford to study at a university (debt free!), have access to medical system, party pretty much regularly and relatively good food. They would not be saving much after all this, but that probably was because they were young people and were not thinking much about saving anyway.

Now, do tell me what does an entry job on a support phone line buy you in the US?

One reason for wealth inequality numbers is high immigration in Scandinavia. For example, in Sweden, 20% of all residents are foreign born immigrants, compared to 14% in US.

> Now, do tell me what does an entry job on a support phone line buy you in the US

There's a reason call center jobs in the US have moved to the South and Midwest (think Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky). You can pay $3-4k a month in those areas and still afford an "American Dream" style life.

The downside is it isn't "sexy" to live in Middle America and some people don't want to live there for ideological reasons.

Out of curiosity, where do you live?

"Sexiness" and "ideological" are just dismissive ways to frame two very legitimate reasons not to want to live in those parts of the country. "Sexiness" is access to various amenities, access to particular job opportunities, access to cultural diversity, and so on. These are legitimate things to want and go far beyond "sexiness," which sounds to me like an implication that people live in metropolises for the Instagram.

"Ideological reasons" is again a dismissive way to describe, for example, not wanting to be discriminated against for preferring the wrong genitals or having the wrong skin color. I grew up in Arizona and had "a family friend" threaten to kidnap my brother and me as children to have us baptized against our will. I had friends who came out as gay and were literally thrown out of their house and immediately cut from all contact with 100% of their family and church support network.

It is 100% legitimate to want the opportunities and liberties that coastal metropolises afford. "Sexy" and "ideological" are extremely dismissive of the facts on the ground. I only hear this sort of dismissiveness from people who have never lived in any of these areas, or who simply prefer their way of life.

> Out of curiosity, where do you live?

San Francisco. But I have lived in extremely conservative areas (think evangelical MAGA types) growing up.

I am also a Brown PoC who always gets confused as either Arab or Hispanic. Yet I've never been accosted or dealt with negativity and I've been fairly successful in shutting down any hint of racism fairly quickly.

I agree if you are LGBTQ+ it's going to suck, but at the end of the day, most people aren't.

On top of that, the metropolitan areas in those regions are fairly liberal. You aren't as likely to face Gay hate in Nashville, Tulsa, or STL. They are all very blue leaning and fairly liberal.

And trust me, the kind of racists and kooks you see in Missouri or Oklahoma can't hold a candle compared to those in Spokane, Bakersfield, or Medford.

A lot of places are neither SF nor MAGA. Consider St. Louis, for example.

It's not inequality that is a problem to me. It is- people of our country not being able to afford the basics. They are renting more than ever where land is owned more and more by faceless capital. They are having to work more shifts to get by, and they can barely afford healthcare.

I see it this way- a poor guy and a rich guy both get cancer. If they can get the same medicine and the same/similar doctors, then I am fine. The poor guy might be sharing the cabin with three other people, and he is going to go home on public transit. I am okay with the rich guy having a room to himself, 8k UHD TV on the wall, and driving home using a Porsche.

I am okay with inequality, as long as all the people have the basics fulfilled.

I don't want everyone to be equally wealthy. What am I? A Communist?

I think what you're talking about is a system which doesn't use wealth to determine the provision of things like education, health, housing or arguably energy and transport. It may use it to determine non-essential aspects of those things like first class or a private room, but the service itself is available to all regardless of income. People can be independently wealthy in such a system, but what they spend their wealth on is not those things.

To an extent this system has existed in the UK, but is being dismantled by those who assert that the rich should not pay in taxes for things that they do not benefit from because if the poor wanted those things badly enough they would become wealthy enough to pay for them. In a weird way, you therefore are a Communist - since that is what this logic demands: that everyone achieves the wealth necessary to pay for everything while the state steps back from this role.

From your Wikipedia link, the World Bank 2020 GINI index ranks the countries that you mentioned like this:

#8 Netherlands

#14 Denmark

#23 Sweden

#108 USA

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