I've seen that meme before. You should be ashamed and embarrassed to post something like that without fact-checking any of its claims. As
this Snopes article points out, almost everything it says is stunningly inaccurate:
- The meme says "the lowest personal income tax in Denmark is 40%." The actual number
is 8%. Even the
average personal income tax in Denmark
is 26%.
- The meme says the cost of gasoline in Denmark is "$10 a gallon"; Snopes mentions that it's
$6.40 a gallon. And of course, most measures of living standards/quality of life account for the cost of living anyway.
- The meme says "Few will ever own a car or a house." Snopes mentions that Denmark's home ownership rate is
63%, almost the same as America's 65%. It also says
70% of Danes own a car. And of course, the meme doesn't mention the availability of public transport, which diminishes the need for a car.
- The meme says Denmark has the highest private debt in the world. It's
not remotely close to the highest, but it's high. Denmark has much higher private debt than America,
286% to 200%—but it also has much lower government debt,
60% to 123%. And its government debt
is shrinking, because it taxes more than it spends.
- The meme says Denmark's suicide rate is "21 per 100,000 people." Snopes (sourcing the
World Health Organization) mentions that the actual suicide rate in Denmark is
8.8 per 100,000, lower than America's 12.1 per 100,000.
- The meme says "employment is scarcely low." Denmark's unemployment rate
is 4.5%. Even if you count everyone, including people who aren't looking for work, Denmark has
the seventh best employment rate in the first world, after Iceland, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, and Germany. Isn't social democracy supposed to cause massive numbers of jobless people mooching off the government?
- The meme says Denmark taxes 80% of your income overall. The actual number
is 51%. That seems terrible because America is in the grip of a tax phobia, but I'd be more than willing to pay Denmark's taxes if we had its government services. Thanks to them, what Americans think of as poverty is almost completely extinct in Denmark. Denmark guarantees
a year of paid maternity leave at 100% of your income,
five weeks of paid vacation,
paid sick leave,
universal healthcare,
universal pre-K and
free college, while spending
40% more than we do on the elderly,
six times as much on childcare,
three times as much on disabled people, and
five times as much on foreign aid. It has
the least poverty in the world and
the most upward mobility. Its child poverty rate (2.7%) is
one eighth of ours and its poverty rate for seniors (4.6%) is
one fifth of ours.
6% of Danes say they can't afford food, compared to 21% of Americans. Its median worker makes
50% more than us per hour. Its healthcare system has
half our infant deaths and
a higher life expectancy at
half the cost. It's
the most gender-equal country in the world after Iceland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden (its parliament is
40% female!). It has
1/6th of our homicide rate,
1/11th our incarceration rate,
less than half our greenhouse gas emissions,
1/6th our teen birth rate,
fewer abortions,
much less drug use, and
faster internet that's
available to almost everyone. It has
much less inequality than we've ever had; its fast-food workers make
over $20 an hour. It
keeps topping lists of the happiest countries in the world.
There are so many other things I could mention. Since poverty makes everything worse (including family life, crime, obesity, ignorance, depression, and stress), there are a million side-benefits from having little to no poverty. Being economically secure frees you to fully participate in society. According to
this EU poll, Swedes and Danes are the most likely people in Europe to (*draws a deep breath*...) read a book, visit a museum, watch/listen to a cultural program on TV or the radio, visit a historical site, go to a concert, go to a library, see a play, dance, make a film, do photography, sing, act, sculpt, paint, draw, blog, write a poem/essay/novel, and play a musical instrument. They're twice as likely to do most of those things as the rest of Europe.
So not only is Denmark not doing badly, it's doing mind-blowingly well. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either a liar or a fool. Wherever you got your information from, stop believing it.
Purchasing Power Index Very High 145.40 Very High 117.40
Consumer Price Index Low 63.32 High 93.68
