Sweden downsizing its welfare state

[Colonel Olrik]

Hey everybody, I pay 42% taxes + 7.5% for the health insurance, which means that I see in the bank barely 51% of my nominal income.


Granted, with the way the German system works, if I were married and with a kid I would instantly pay only half this tax.

[Darth Wong]

From my first post, my point has been to provide the observations of someone who has lives and works in one of Welfare Finland's largest cities. I had no intention to start arguing about something I actually live through. My sincere apologies for the lack of statistics in describing my own life in Glorious Welfare Finland

You can't justify everything you say by the fact that you live there. By your own admission, you've never needed any serious medical care, yet you rant about how awful the waiting times are for serious medical care in your country. What makes you any more specially qualified to discuss that than anyone else with a web browser?

Also, you're still ignoring the point: you have not tried living in one of the laissez-faire capitalist paradises you obviously wish you were in, so what makes you think it would be better? In fact, all you've done is grouse about how awful it is to live in the country that makes the #1 rank on all of the UN's HDI rankings, but you've done so in isolation. It's like a government unionized worker complaining about how hard his life is.

[Edi]

Our 22% VAT applies on everything except food. Food "only" has a VAT of 17%.

Medicines, books, transportation of people and some other things have a VAT of 8%. Food VAT drops to 12% in October this year. Otherwise correct.

It was an average, and my figure was based on the working population. Not total population since the working percentage of the population is the portion that actually pays for the healthcare. Yes, the Government pays the bill to provide for healthcare which's effectiveness is much criticized these days. The private sector is quickly gaining in cost-effectiveness and the quality of provided healthcare.

It would help a lot if you stated this kind of special caveats from the get-go, because otherwise it makes it look like you're skewing the figures to look better for your argument. Besides that, it's not comparable to anything, unless you can do a similar calculation for any other country you wish to compare to. I wonder what that would look like.

Righteous Fist of Heaven, I have a number of anecdotes from my family, friends and acquaintances that generally run counter to what you've said here, so if you want to get into trading anecdotes, I'm willing to go for it.

My sister got hospitalized with some pretty severe lung problems due to an extended and vicious bout of pneumonia and other problems and it didn't cost my family anything. That was very recently. The only times I've had to pay anything for being hospitalized was once for a private hospital. Haven't had to pay anything besides the basic administrative fee they charge at the clinics anywhere unless it has been a private outfit (like when I had my wrist checked last winter to see if it was broken, it was Sunday).

Oh believe me, I pretty much touched the tip of the iceberg with my examples. After all, my point from the beginning was to provide the point of view of a person who is actually living in a welfare state.

Yeah, that may have been your intention, but where the fuck am I living then? At the end of the rainbow with leprechauns and Fluffy the Purple Unicorn? I live in this country too and I've had to use the social services and my experience has not been anywhere near what you describe, nor have I heard it being that bad for anyone I know.

Is your sister under 18? As you quite well know, healthcare is free until you turn 18. Now THAT, is a positive side of our healthcare system. From my hospitalization incident, I still have the documentation to show for the costs. The medication wasn't free nor was the brief time at the hospital. Now, in my understanding, Free Healthcare means I don't need to pay for it in addition to the taxes I already am paying.

My sister is just a year and a half younger than I am, meaning she's past 30. The hospital stay was this year.

I've been on unemployment, student grants and other such in the past and I have never had any problems with the bureaucracy. Neither have members of my family or my friends when they've had to use it. So maybe if you happen to live in what sounds like most incompetently run part of Bumfuck, Mosquito's Asshole, the Boonies, your kind of experiences are typical. I haven't seen anything of the kind.

Congratulations then! You have been quite lucky. Very goddamn lucky since I can't recall a single time when the bureaucracy of our venerable Welfare State would have worked properly in the instances I've had to deal with it. Not once. No, I dont live in Jesus Christ's Asshole. Although, Tampere sometimes sure does feel like it. I admit that my experiences dont actually describe the way the system is supposed to work. In my observation though, the Finnish Welfare system looks great on paper. Not so super in practice.

It's not perfect, but it sure as fuck ain't as broken as you make it sound. I don't know if it's just the office where you filed your paperwork that fucked up, but that's a distinct possibility. If there was a systemic problem like you describe, it wouldn't just be suppressed. It doesn't take more than one or two fuckups in one office to snarl everything for a lot of people, since as government workers, they are almost fucking impossible to fire. The nice thing about our system is that filing a complaint into the administrative courts doesn't cost almost anything and it sure sounds like you have a case if everything was fucked up that bad. Though of course if it's been long ago, the statute of limitations on it has expired.

By the way, the Social Welfare I should have received during the time I really really needed it would have barely covered my rent and unavoidable bills. Arranging for eating and transportation was a bit more difficult. In the case of the woman whom I dated for a while, the social support she should (keyword, "should" ) have received could have just and just covered the interest in her mortgage and food.

It is supposed to be subsistence level support and it has been a fucking long time since it's been reindexed to reflect reality, which means it is often a bit short.

However, since KELA never got around to paying more than 500€ (which was based on her previous employment before she got laid off from the last one), I had to loan her money so she wouldn't be kicked out of her home. The answer from KELA when we asked what would they do about the missing papework was simply "These things can happen. You need to re-submit the paperwork.". So, in my own PERSONAL experience, the Social Safety Net has failed time after another to provide the help it should when it's needed the most.

And was this always at the same office? Paperwork does get lost in the shuffle and I don't know if it's a specific malady in the Tampere offices, but in Helsinki it has worked quite well. I might have had to resubmit one form once, during several years when I had to deal with the bureaucracy on and off depending on whether I had work or not.

If your health care comes out of your tax bill, it's pretty fucking disingenuous for you to claim that it's $6000 a year on top of taxes.

Pardon my wording, I meant that I involuntarily already pay 6,000$ a year for healthcare. In the last ten years, I've required medical assistance in a medical facility precisely five times. No major operations, surgeries etc. If I required those, I luckily have an insurance to cover them in a private facility. Since the waiting times for public healthcare, when you need anything more done than a ceritifcate for sick leave, are insane.

Time for another counter-anecdote: I've required medical attention necessitating a hospital stay three times in the past eleven years, for a major surgical procedure. The first two operations failed in the healing phase when certain stitches didn't hold. Those were on the public side and it was a non-urgent (from the system's point of view) operation and it cost me fucking nothing.

The third time I had it done privately, because then the waiting time would have been years precisely due to the non-critical (i.e. not life threatening or seriously debilitating condition) status of the problem. It was successful due to not using automatically dissolving stitches in the critical locations. That particular thing cost something like 4000 euros for the operation and all the associated costs for it and none of that was covered by insurance. It didn't require an overnight hospital stay, as opposed to the public side. If it had, it would have been more.

The wait times on the public side for urgent stuff are not nearly as bad as you make it sound, but non-urgent stuff gets shunted back if higher priority cases appear. That's how the resource allocation works.

Dude, if you want to successfully make this sort of argument, you really need some honest-to-god statistics to support it. Anecdotes are worth shit for persuading reasonable people.

From my first post, my point has been to provide the observations of someone who has lives and works in one of Welfare Finland's largest cities. I had no intention to start arguing about something I actually live through. My sincere apologies for the lack of statistics in describing my own life in Glorious Welfare Finland

If you're going to make sweeping generalizations based on your own personal experiences when it's not supported by easily available data, expect to be challenged. That's how shit works here.

To be frank, you've had bad experiences and you rant on them, but when you fucking get counter-examples from people living in the same country, you stop doing sweeping generalizations or you'll get your ass beaten like a drum.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Hey everybody, I pay 42% taxes + 7.5% for the health insurance, which means that I see in the bank barely 51% of my nominal income.


Granted, with the way the German system works, if I were married and with a kid I would instantly pay only half this tax.

I honestly don't find anything objectionable to this if you're in the range of 70k - 120k USD equivalent, let alone higher. *grumbles* I'd certainly accept that kind of taxation in exchange for the prospect of the kind of paid vacation time you get over there, nevermind the health insurance.

[Colonel Olrik]

Hey everybody, I pay 42% taxes + 7.5% for the health insurance, which means that I see in the bank barely 51% of my nominal income.


Granted, with the way the German system works, if I were married and with a kid I would instantly pay only half this tax.

I honestly don't find anything objectionable to this if you're in the range of 70k - 120k USD equivalent, let alone higher. *grumbles* I'd certainly accept that kind of taxation in exchange for the prospect of the kind of paid vacation time you get over there, nevermind the health insurance.

This degree of taxation and conservative lending rules means that even relatively good earning couples cannot afford their own place unless they have rich parents (we don't). That's why Germans buy their first home in their fourties, if ever. I understand how things go terribly wrong in the other extreme, but I think here the situation is not perfect. If you're a home owner you're singing though, rents are insanely high in Munich for this reason.

6 or 7 weeks of paid vacations is nice, yeah. Come over

[aerius]

Also, you're still ignoring the point: you have not tried living in one of the laissez-faire capitalist paradises you obviously wish you were in, so what makes you think it would be better? In fact, all you've done is grouse about how awful it is to live in the country that makes the #1 rank on all of the UN's HDI rankings, but you've done so in isolation. It's like a government unionized worker complaining about how hard his life is.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to wake up at 6 in the morning and work a 7 hour shift with a lunchbreak and coffee breaks? It's murder I tell you, murder!
And I have to work on weekends sometimes, weekends, can you fucking believe that shit?

But it's true, people in general never know how good they have it till it's gone. I have a bunch of belly-aching co-workers who keep whining about how "hard & unfair" our jobs are when it's actually about the easiest cushiest work I can imagine. If these people ever get dumped into the private sector they'd have a fucking heart attack.

[Thanas]

This degree of taxation and conservative lending rules means that even relatively good earning couples cannot afford their own place unless they have rich parents (we don't). That's why Germans buy their first home in their fourties, if ever. I understand how things go terribly wrong in the other extreme, but I think here the situation is not perfect. If you're a home owner you're singing though, rents are insanely high in Munich for this reason.

I don't think that is true - my parents managed to buy a house when they were in their twenties. They didn't get that much help from the grandparents either I believe it was 40.000 Mark then. You just have to accept mortgages. One of my friends recently bought a house as well and he works as a callcenter supervisor while his wife is a Sozpäd. So I don't think they swim in money either.

But you are right, in general lenders and borrowers are very conservative in Germany. I was taught never to go into debt except for buying a house or education.

[Falkenhayn]

Do you have any idea how hard it is to wake up at 6 in the morning and work a 7 hour shift with a lunchbreak and coffee breaks? It's murder I tell you, murder!
And I have to work on weekends sometimes, weekends, can you fucking believe that shit?

But it's true, people in general never know how good they have it till it's gone. I have a bunch of belly-aching co-workers who keep whining about how "hard & unfair" our jobs are when it's actually about the easiest cushiest work I can imagine. If these people ever get dumped into the private sector they'd have a fucking heart attack.

I used to seal driveways and power wash houses as a summer job. My average work week was 60 hrs, 6 days/week. My longest single work day was 13.5 hours. Typically, I left home at 6:30 AM and returned at 7 PM. I received $9.50/hr + Overtime, no benefits. Is this kind of labor even legal in Finland? Hell, I started working 40+ hour weeks when I was 18.

[Serafina]

I don't think that is true - my parents managed to buy a house when they were in their twenties. They didn't get that much help from the grandparents either I believe it was 40.000 Mark then. You just have to accept mortgages. One of my friends recently bought a house as well and he works as a callcenter supervisor while his wife is a Sozpäd. So I don't think they swim in money either.

But you are right, in general lenders and borrowers are very conservative in Germany. I was taught never to go into debt except for buying a house or education.

Or a new car - don't forget about that, Thanas

I do not think that that it is that important at which age you buy, but rather the people that are able to buy it in the first place.
In Germany, it is way harded to get a huge loan - which means that poorer people are way less likely to receive one, even if they were able to pay it off.
The result: Only the upper middle class (and richer) is "guaranteed" to be able to buy a house (if they wan to). The rest of the middle class may be able to do so, but only if they work specifically for it - it is customary to have specific saving plans for this purpose. Saving for ten to twenty years, and paying off the dept for another twenty to thiry years.

If you buy a house in Germany, you are either rich or planned for it for most of your life.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

[
I don't think that is true - my parents managed to buy a house when they were in their twenties. They didn't get that much help from the grandparents either I believe it was 40.000 Mark then. You just have to accept mortgages. One of my friends recently bought a house as well and he works as a callcenter supervisor while his wife is a Sozpäd. So I don't think they swim in money either.

But you are right, in general lenders and borrowers are very conservative in Germany. I was taught never to go into debt except for buying a house or education.

I was also taught to avoid debt, albeit for religious reasons, and I have to say it's the only thing that's kept me alive in the cutthroat America, though it poses all of its own problems like making it difficult to secure an apartment.


And in answer to Olrik, it's certainly a possibility. Probably not Germany, though, the nuclear power industry there is in too much flux, and it'll be some years yet regardless. I'd prefer Europe to Quebec, though I'll take either one. There's a sense of peculiar liberation in the idea of being a sufficiently educated professional that I can actually compete for jobs in foreign countries, though, that's for sure.

My main concern is mandatory retirement ages--my dad is still working at 91 and I want to emulate him, which I think may require a shift to research/teaching around 65 -70 due to universal mandatory retirement ages, rather than doing direct industrial works? Then again that might just be republican propaganda about forced retirements in Europe.

[Thanas]

Or a new car - don't forget about that, Thanas

I know you were probably joking, but going into debt to buy a car is exactly one of the things I was taught never to do and what I will never do.

In Germany, it is way harded to get a huge loan - which means that poorer people are way less likely to receive one, even if they were able to pay it off.
The result: Only the upper middle class (and richer) is "guaranteed" to be able to buy a house (if they wan to). The rest of the middle class may be able to do so, but only if they work specifically for it - it is customary to have specific saving plans for this purpose. Saving for ten to twenty years, and paying off the dept for another twenty to thiry years.

If you buy a house in Germany, you are either rich or planned for it for most of your life.

I know several people who would be considered lower middle or even lower class and who own a house. I think you are somewhat exaggerating. Buying a house in germany is very hard and takes a lot of time, but I don't think that is the single reason for why more people don't do it (43% of germans do own a house or an appartment) - I think it is because you can't afford to move around with it.

[Serafina]

[
I don't think that is true - my parents managed to buy a house when they were in their twenties. They didn't get that much help from the grandparents either I believe it was 40.000 Mark then. You just have to accept mortgages. One of my friends recently bought a house as well and he works as a callcenter supervisor while his wife is a Sozpäd. So I don't think they swim in money either.

But you are right, in general lenders and borrowers are very conservative in Germany. I was taught never to go into debt except for buying a house or education.

I was also taught to avoid debt, albeit for religious reasons, and I have to say it's the only thing that's kept me alive in the cutthroat America, though it poses all of its own problems like making it difficult to secure an apartment.


And in answer to Olrik, it's certainly a possibility. Probably not Germany, though, the nuclear power industry there is in too much flux, and it'll be some years yet regardless. I'd prefer Europe to Quebec, though I'll take either one. There's a sense of peculiar liberation in the idea of being a sufficiently educated professional that I can actually compete for jobs in foreign countries, though, that's for sure.

My main concern is mandatory retirement ages--my dad is still working at 91 and I want to emulate him, which I think may require a shift to research/teaching around 65 -70 due to universal mandatory retirement ages, rather than doing direct industrial works? Then again that might just be republican propaganda about forced retirements in Europe.

Well, you may be forced to retire at a certain age (it's currently 65) - but you are getting a decent retirement pension, too.
Oh, and the retirement ages are raised, anyway - some estaminate that it is goingto be around 76 for my generation (22).

I know you were probably joking, but going into debt to buy a car is exactly one of the things I was taught never to do and what I will never do.

Actually, i was not joking - a lot of people tend to take short-time credits to buy cars. House, education and car are the "holy trinity of accepted loans" to most people i know.

[Darth Wong]

Frankly, judging other countries by their failure to achieve America's high rate of home ownership is rather silly. America's high rate of home ownership is not something to be proud of; it's the fucking albatross hanging around the neck of millions of Americans right now. How many of them can't afford to relocate because they're underwater on their mortgages and will remain so until the real estate market recovers, whenever that might be? How many of them really should relocate because they're in dying communities, but can't?

A lot of these people would be far better off if they had been renting all this time.

[Spoonist]

So lets check it out. If you want facts instead of my estimates go here http://www.scb.se/Pages/TableAndChart____68066.aspx and for comparison http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world
Here comes my rough estimates of living in Sweden. First my employer pays ~30% tax on my salary, then I pay another ~30% tax on that, most stuff have a VAT of 25% while food is 12%. When comparing taxes that means that of what I get roughly ~60% of my income goes to taxes.

So lets see what I get for that in chronological order (just a short summary) this is from memory so it could be full of errors:
Pregnancy.
Free counceling & advisory 15-20 times. Free medical check up every month, until the third trimester when its free medical checkup every week. If you are overdue its every threee days, still free.
Childbirth.
The mother can take out parental leave up to 60 days before predicted birth.
In connection with the birth the father gets 10 days parental leave with ~80% of your income. Per child, so if its triplets you get 30. I think its for adoptive parents as well.
The mother and father gets to share 390 days of parental leave with ~80% of your income (+180 for twins) and an extra 90 days with only ~$30/day.
These days can be taken out whenever you want until the child start school.
Until the child is 16 you get child pay every month ~$120 per child.
Until 16 if your child is sick you can call in sick at work with ~80% of your income, up to ~100 days/year
Hospital stay for childbirth is $50 for the mother and another $80 for the partner for food & lodging. If you cant drive to the hospital you can get transport for $20/fare.
Daycare/kindergarten
Maximum of $180/month for first child ($120 for second etc) but it is much lower for low income workers.
School
Free. Well unless you count ordinary expenses like daytrips, clothes etc.
High School
Free.
University
Free. And you can take out subsidized governement loans for living expenses.
Hospitals
Administrative fee of $50-100 per visit.
Medicine
Subsidized by governement. Maximum of $300 per year by prescription, if you get this the rest is free.
Sick leave
1st day you get nothing. 2nd-200 you get ~75% of your salary.
Work
If you join an unemployment insurance, again subsidized, you pay $50/month and if you become unemployed you get ~75% of your income up to 300 days (450 if you have a child), up to a maximum of $100/day. If you are in a union they usually insure you for 80% of your income with no maximum.
Vacation is usually 5-6 weeks with ~10 national holidays of as well.
Pension
Usually at 65, with an average of $2200/month, but if you took the subsidized insurance as well this could get much higher.
Old and sick
While living at home, getting help which comes to you costs max of ~$250/month with an average of half of that.
At an old folks home, ~$700/month
At a hospital when finally checking out, ~$400/month.

Now there is no actual benefits when you die (like in poland with horrendeous result) but if your estate have no money the funeral is payed for by the governement.

By the way, the Social Welfare I should have received during the time I really really needed it would have barely covered my rent and unavoidable bills. Arranging for eating and transportation was a bit more difficult.

That is my own experience from being on social welfare here in Sweden. 500€ a month to cover all living costs and that's that. Hardly what you'd call a life of luxory.

Now this is plain bullshit and you know it.

This is all paid for:
Rent
Utility bills
Home insurance
Hospital, dental & medicine including glasses
Unemployment insurance
Union fee
"Unforseen expenses"
Travel expenses if you are working

By applying for it you can buy:
Basic furniture
TV
Mircowave
Telephone
Relatives funeral
Clothes and equipment for your children
Computer and internet connection

After all of that is paid for you get another ~$530/month for living expenses and you dont have to pay anything back. So yes that is luxury and both of you are spoiled beyond belief not to recognize that.
Compare that to the minimum wage in the US of $7.25/h, just to earn those $530 you would have to work for 73 hours per month!!!! And that is just the living expenses. So you have at least 1.7 million people in the US alone that is working and earning less than half of what you get from welfare.

[Tiriol]

Do you have any idea how hard it is to wake up at 6 in the morning and work a 7 hour shift with a lunchbreak and coffee breaks? It's murder I tell you, murder!
And I have to work on weekends sometimes, weekends, can you fucking believe that shit?

But it's true, people in general never know how good they have it till it's gone. I have a bunch of belly-aching co-workers who keep whining about how "hard & unfair" our jobs are when it's actually about the easiest cushiest work I can imagine. If these people ever get dumped into the private sector they'd have a fucking heart attack.

I used to seal driveways and power wash houses as a summer job. My average work week was 60 hrs, 6 days/week. My longest single work day was 13.5 hours. Typically, I left home at 6:30 AM and returned at 7 PM. I received $9.50/hr + Overtime, no benefits. Is this kind of labor even legal in Finland? Hell, I started working 40+ hour weeks when I was 18.

Depends. My longest work day was 16 hours straight. Someone has pulled 80 hour work week (not me, I topped mine at 60 hours as well). The no benefits part is different, though: unless the central work conditions contract is totally shitty (the work conditions contract, signed by the big unions, both employees' and employers' and usually handled by the government, stipulate the minimum wages for a given job below which no invidual contract can go) there should be at least evening and night compensation and of course the vacation time does accumulate.

The usual work week here is 40 hours (or rather 40 hours minus half an hour every day for five days, due to the unpaid lunch hour, which I don't coincidentally have) for five days. I believe that the minimum amount of rest for the week (as a continuous rest) is 30 hours (so at least Sunday or an equivalent), although that knowledge comes from security service's work conditions contract so other fields may have other minimum amounts. There is also a minimum amount of rest between the shifts, unless the employer wants to compensate for the lost resting time.

So, theoretically that is legal in Finland. However, it would become costly very quickly to the employer, if he would constantly wish for such working hours. Overtime, lost resting time compensation and evening (and possibly night) monetary compensation would be horrendous.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well, you may be forced to retire at a certain age (it's currently 65) - but you are getting a decent retirement pension, too.
Oh, and the retirement ages are raised, anyway - some estaminate that it is goingto be around 76 for my generation (22).

Is there any kind of work that you can do after retirement age? Are for instance instructors at what would be in the US collegiate level institutions and certain positions exempted? I basically want to work until I drop dead, as long as I'm getting a nice comfortable two months of vacation a year the whole while, maybe more later on.... I couldn't see myself ever being quite content in a country with forced retirement and I honestly think not having something to do in live like that is very unhealthy, promoting brain deteoriation from lack of mental exercise and a rapid decay in the desire to live. So the one major problem I do see for relocating to Europe (excepted if there are exceptions for certain classes of people, as I certainly intend to have a doctorate by then) would be the prospect of forced retirement, which I desire to avoid at any cost. On the other hand I don't consider it particularly wise to raise children in the 'states, which is certainly something I intend to do... But I want to make sure I'm still able to putter around teaching a couple of introductory engineering classes when I'm 90.

[Rahvin]

After reading Spoonist's more detailed list of what is covered...

I wish I lived in Finland. Anyone from Finland who wants to live in the US is insane.

Tax me. Motherfucking tax the shit out of me to give me that. If I lose my job you'll pay my rent, utilities, internet connection, health insurance, and give me money?! I've had full time jobs that wouldn't give me shit that good. 6 weeks of vacation, and no worries if I need to take care of a sick kid, whether medical bills or just time off?

I have a good job,and I only get 3 weeks of combined sick/vacation time; and while I can use FMLA to get excused from work for more time if medically necessary, I won't get paid for it at all.

Unemployment here isn't some sort of "we'll pay your rent and utilities" scheme - it's based on your income for the past few quarters (the highest 3-month period in the past year) and the maximum payout is capped pretty low. When I was on unemployment I received about $600/2 weeks. $1200/month total isn't a lot for food, rent, utilities, etc. I had to drop my cell phone, turn off the cable (and the internet connection with it), and cut back on everything. And at the time I didn't even have a car to worry about. I went without any health insurance at all - one bad day could have ruined me for life. Did I mention that the $1200 is before taxes, and I still had to pay income tax on my unemployment at the end of the year with money I didn't have? You can choose to have 10% of your unemployment check withheld for taxes, but you'll owe more than that anyway, and it just lowers the amount you're given.

Oh...and US$1200 is currently only a little over 800 Euros. You'd get all that good shit paid for and then get 2/3 of what I had to live on total on top of it.

I tell you this right now - if an American political party were to give us a safety net that good, and only taxed us as much as Finland does, I'd vote for them for the rest of my life.

[Thanas]

Well, you may be forced to retire at a certain age (it's currently 65) - but you are getting a decent retirement pension, too.
Oh, and the retirement ages are raised, anyway - some estaminate that it is goingto be around 76 for my generation (22).

Is there any kind of work that you can do after retirement age? Are for instance instructors at what would be in the US collegiate level institutions and certain positions exempted?

No. College professors have to stop at 65/66. However you can continue on and get fewer money for your lectures or only get paid the times you actually do lecture in addition to your pension.

That said, it is hardly unlikely you will be forced to retire. Okay, you may be, but one of my closest relatives was an engineer and he worked until he was 65 (which was three years over the retirement age back then and nobody forced him to stop working at all). Engineers, like many sought-after professions in Germany, are an exception.

Also, AFAIK retirement in germany is only mandatory for a very select group of officials, like university professors, judges, notaries etc...and evne then it depends. There is no general mandatory retirement for people working in the free market.

[Spoonist]

After reading Spoonist's more detailed list of what is covered...

I wish I lived in Finland. Anyone from Finland who wants to live in the US is insane.

Uhm, I am from sweden like I said in the post, but all of scandinavia is pretty much the same. We are usually all in the top 10 of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... ment_Index

[ArmorPierce]

Lets see. Approximately 25% tax on annual income, so lets say about $9,000. 7% sales tax in NJ. $7,000 property tax for a modest single family home = 18% tax on $37,000 in NJ (http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/in ... xml&coll=1), . Lets say health care cost someone 170 a month (I don't know the average cost of heal car for a healthy single person but the average at http://www.ehealthinsurance.com seemed to be about this number) that is over $2,000 a year. For sales tax I couldn't get a per person number, only number i got was 6.85 billion per year in Jersey in 2001. A rough estimate is to average that with the state's population. With a population of 8,414,350, that is approximately $800 paid in sales tax annually.

So, in New Jersey, tax expense for a young single individual making $37,000 is approximately $16,800 which is 45% of income. Add to that $2,000 for health care expense, $18,800 and that's approximately 51% of income to taxes and health insurance. How much of your income is taxed?

You can correct me on these figures since I'm not an expert in US taxation system and the figures are a result of quick googling. A single taxpayer under 65 and not blind with standard deductions would have a Federal Income Tax Rate of 18.1%. Added to that, the average State Income Tax in NJ is 6.61%. This comes out to 24.71%. In addition, the sales tax of 7% only applies to certain consumer items. Exemptions include most food items for at-home preparation, medicines, clothing (except fur items), footwear, and disposable paper products for use at home. Our 22% VAT applies on everything except food. Food "only" has a VAT of 17%.

Yes that is correct. You missed out on social security tax, unemployment tax, medicaid tax and property tax which is leveled by the local government (at the county level) though and property tax is probably the most major one of them.

Again, when taking into consideration much higher cost of living in Finland, the disrepancy grows even higher. In addition, Finland has the fourth highest VAT level in the entire world and one of the highest Income Taxation levels in the entire world. What accounts as a middle-income worker for us receives roughly 40% of their wage after the median tax wedge has been applied.

Finland's cost of living is not that much higher than America's http://www.internetworldstat.com/most-e ... ntries.htm America is only two spots behind and the most expensive parts of America is more expensive to live in than the most expensive parts of Finland with New York ahead of Finland's most expensive city.

[[R_H]]

Until 16 if your child is sick you can call in sick at work with ~80% of your income, up to ~100 days/year

That many days? Wow. Have there been any problems with people abusing that? Or do employers ask for a note from the doctor?

School
Free. Well unless you count ordinary expenses like daytrips, clothes etc.
High School
Free.

Are school supplies paid for too?

University
Free. And you can take out subsidized governement loans for living expenses.

Completely free, or do students still have to pay some tuition? What about books? Transportation?

[Tiriol]

If I lose my job you'll pay my rent, utilities, internet connection, health insurance, and give me money?! I've had full time jobs that wouldn't give me shit that good. 6 weeks of vacation, and no worries if I need to take care of a sick kid, whether medical bills or just time off?

Just to clarify, it is possible, at least to my limited understanding (I haven't taken time to get to know just what I could get on an unemployment social welfare, since I can only apply for student's financial aid until such time when my studies are over, even if I do get fired from my job), to get all that, or at least part of it: but there's a ton of bureaucratic work involved and right now there are actual queues to get those benefits, thanks to the current economical situation. My mother was unemployed for months, got a new job and she got her first paycheck from her new job BEFORE she got any unemployment financial aid. It took 3-4 months, all in all, and she apparently was a lucky one in the current situation. But yes, the state at least tries to take care of those who have hit hard times. This is why I usually take very dim view of those who want to cut taxes and remove social welfare programs because they're "useless" and people using them are just "parasites of the society".

Until 16 if your child is sick you can call in sick at work with ~80% of your income, up to ~100 days/year

That many days? Wow. Have there been any problems with people abusing that? Or do employers ask for a note from the doctor?

Almost all employers ask for a note from the doctor (or a nurse). The employer can usually give couple of days sick time without doctor's note, but I don't know how many do that (and there is a set limit to that: usually two or three days top, then you MUST get a doctor's note).

School
Free. Well unless you count ordinary expenses like daytrips, clothes etc.
High School
Free.

Are school supplies paid for too?

Elementary school just about everything is paid, not counting pencils and notebooks. High school: you have to buy your own books (although there are a number of ways to reduce their costs, which has caused some stir now when a publisher or two recently wanted to shut down a website where people could sell their school books to each other at greatly reduced costs).

University
Free. And you can take out subsidized governement loans for living expenses.

Completely free, or do students still have to pay some tuition? What about books? Transportation?

It is free, no tuitions. The books you must buy yourself. And transportation, although usually rather cheap (and the students get 50% discount), is still something you have to pay for, as is in other school levels.

[[R_H]]

Until 16 if your child is sick you can call in sick at work with ~80% of your income, up to ~100 days/year

That many days? Wow. Have there been any problems with people abusing that? Or do employers ask for a note from the doctor?

Almost all employers ask for a note from the doctor (or a nurse). The employer can usually give couple of days sick time without doctor's note, but I don't know how many do that (and there is a set limit to that: usually two or three days top, then you MUST get a doctor's note).

OK.

School
Free. Well unless you count ordinary expenses like daytrips, clothes etc.
High School
Free.

Are school supplies paid for too?

Elementary school just about everything is paid, not counting pencils and notebooks. High school: you have to buy your own books (although there are a number of ways to reduce their costs, which has caused some stir now when a publisher or two recently wanted to shut down a website where people could sell their school books to each other at greatly reduced costs).

OK. Why do you have to buy the books? I went to highschool in Canada, in the city's school system the books were lent out to us, and at the end of the year we got the money back (security deposit, basically, damaged or lost books meant you got less/no money back).

University
Free. And you can take out subsidized governement loans for living expenses.

Completely free, or do students still have to pay some tuition? What about books? Transportation?

It is free, no tuitions. The books you must buy yourself. And transportation, although usually rather cheap (and the students get 50% discount), is still something you have to pay for, as is in other school levels.

No tuition? Wow, that's pretty sweet. Your student discount is incredible too, here in Switzerland it's between (I can't remember exactly) 10 and 20%, but that's for all public transit in the country. Do a lot of people attend university (like in North America), or relatively few (say, less than 50% of highschool graduates)?

[Tiriol]

Elementary school just about everything is paid, not counting pencils and notebooks. High school: you have to buy your own books (although there are a number of ways to reduce their costs, which has caused some stir now when a publisher or two recently wanted to shut down a website where people could sell their school books to each other at greatly reduced costs).

OK. Why do you have to buy the books? I went to highschool in Canada, in the city's school system the books were lent out to us, and at the end of the year we got the money back (security deposit, basically, damaged or lost books meant you got less/no money back).

I'm not sure and it is often seen in a very negative light: the books are very expensive, the student's financial aid to youths attending high school is miniscule (even if they don't live with their parents) and it is an actual strain on poor parents' finances. It doesn't help that the publishers change the books every couple year or so (and sometimes they just shuffle around chapters or so; when I re-attended a Swedish class I had already taken, I had to buy a new book, which was mostly the same, but chapters were in different places and some new chapters had been added).

It is free, no tuitions. The books you must buy yourself. And transportation, although usually rather cheap (and the students get 50% discount), is still something you have to pay for, as is in other school levels.

No tuition? Wow, that's pretty sweet. Your student discount is incredible too, here in Switzerland it's between (I can't remember exactly) 10 and 20%, but that's for all public transit in the country. Do a lot of people attend university (like in North America), or relatively few (say, less than 50% of highschool graduates)?

I don't remember the official figures (and I think that people taking graduate studies (to get that Master's degree) are not eligible for student's discount), but quite a few attend universities, be their science universities, economy universities or universities of applied sciences. Official figures, as already stated, I don't know. However, it has become increasingly hard to get a good job without an university-level diploma (and at least universities of applied sciences, a rather new innovation, are shafted even in that) so if one wants to have career advancement in these days, one is almost forced to get some kind of university-level education. This produces quite a lot university students.

[Julhelm]

Now this is plain bullshit and you know it.

Not at all so.

This is all paid for:

Rent - Yes
Utility bills - Yes
Home insurance - You pay this with whatever is left over after
Hospital, dental & medicine including glasses Jesus F Christ, no, glasses are definitely NOT covered. Anything eye- or teeth-related is not covered by the socialized healthcare.
Unemployment insurance - No. You have to pay that yourself on top of the union fee. Also you have to work for a minimum of 6 months fulltime AND on top of that be a union member for more than a year to be eligible for the unemployment insurance. If you don't meet both requirements you don't get paid anything and thus have to apply for welfare.
Union fee - Again, you pay this yourself through your salary on top of tax.
"Unforseen expenses" - Fuck no. You pay for these with whatever assets you have left.
Travel expenses if you are working - You get compensated the month after, which means that if you have no money to travel to your job, you are fucked.

By applying for it you can buy:
Basic furniture
TV
Mircowave
Telephone
Relatives funeral
Clothes and equipment for your children
Computer and internet connection

How do you afford all this stuff on the 250€ you are calculated to have over after primary costs are paid?

After all of that is paid for you get another ~$530/month for living expenses and you dont have to pay anything back. So yes that is luxury and both of you are spoiled beyond belief not to recognize that.
Compare that to the minimum wage in the US of $7.25/h, just to earn those $530 you would have to work for 73 hours per month!!!! And that is just the living expenses. So you have at least 1.7 million people in the US alone that is working and earning less than half of what you get from welfare.

That is completely wrong. You get a lump sum that's based on your rent and "necessary" bills like electricity, water and so on. It's calculated so that you should have about 250€ to cover all other costs of living for that month. Do note that if you have any assets such as bank savings or a car, you have to use them up first before you are eligible for welfare. They check your bank and salary records three months back just to make sure you can't hide any funds away. Thus, if you have a car, you are usually forced to get rid of that in order to get the welfare check to pay your bills, which in turn fucks you over since you most likely need that car to get to any new jobs you find. Also it's pretty much impossible to save anything since it is calculated you will go +/- 0. In fact, if they calculate you make a profit, how unlikely that is, you WILL be forced to pay back or get docked your check.

Now, if we're talking unemployment insurance, that is something completely different but only just IMO since you've worked for that. But if you are not eligible for it and have to apply for the welfare check, well, I'm sorry but that just isn't a life of luxory. Especially when you are usually forced to work fulltime for free at a random company that the social office chooses for you as part of "job training". Technically this is a good way to get into the market, but when you keep in mind you can keep the "practicant" status for 2 years because most companies here abuse the system and never actually end up employing you it is perhaps not so fun.