WHAT AMERICANS DON´T KNOW ABOUT SWEDEN
By: Omar Essa
Tags: Welfare, Sweden, Taxes, USA, Socialism

Is not told in main stream media ….

I´ve been following the American election this year very closely ever since it started and I discovered the huge interest among American politicians and the American people for the so called “Swedish Economic Modell” and how to try to implement it in the United States and to my surprise came how little Americans really know about the “Swedish Modell” and the Economy of Sweden. As a swede I´ll try to explain in this article what Swedish Modell really is based on my life experience.

Many Americans think of Sweden as the “Socialist Heaven” where everything is FREE! Well, let me tell you one thing my American friends, there´s no such thing as FREE is life. We pay for everything in our life, in one way or another. A lot of people around the world know that Sweden's healthcare is free and education is free but very few know the huge price Swedish people pay in taxes to get free healthcare and free education.

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Highest income taxes in the world

Sweden has a progressive income tax system which means the higher your income is the higher taxes you pay. The income tax in Sweden starts from 33% of the monthly salary and rises depending on the amount of salary you earn. But it can go all the way up to 50% in some cases! Also in Sweden there is VAT (Value added tax) 25% which is among the highest in the world. So for a lot of goods you purchase in Sweden, there is a 25% VAT that goes for the Swedish Tax Agency. It´s safe to say that all Sweden's welfare program are heavily depending on the tax revenue.

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FREE EDUCATION!!!

This is one of the things that I heard a lot from American media and the American Democratic politician Bernie Sanders: “Lets have a tuition free education like Sweden and Denmark”!!! and that made me laugh a lot!! Because in reality it´s totally the opposite in Sweden. Yes, high school is FREE in Sweden but Colleague and University is NOT FREE! We take student loans as well. All Swedish university students take student loans not to pay for any tuition fee but to be able to afford living expenses and books expenses. The average Swedish student finish University with a student debt around 250 000 Swedish krona which is around 25k Dollar and many have a student debt of 500 000 Swedish krona which is 50k Dollar. Now of course this not a lot compared to American student debt but it´s still a debt that most Swedish people tend to pay for the rest of their life. Life is very expensive in Sweden and sometimes students need to work weekends to make ends meet despite taking a full student loan.

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Sweden is a Socialist country?!!

Socialism has always been connected with Sweden somehow which I really don´t know where people get it from! Sweden is NOT a Socialist country. It´s a free market Capitalist country. Sweden experimented with Socialism during the 80s of the last century but it failed and the country had to make big economic reforms and eventually Capitalism became the main economic model of Sweden. Yes Sweden does have a lot of “Socialist” country like welfare programs but I doesn´t make it a Socialist country per say. Because what Sweden simply does is collecting high taxes and spending it on welfare programs which practically any other country in the world can do. But it takes to have very high taxes on peoples incomes. And that´s the main driver of the welfare programs, high taxes. Which I know Americans are not in big favor of. And so are the rest of the Scandinavian countries, Norway and Denmark have a very similar tax rates and almost the same social programs as well.

T o summarize all of this. I believe that there´s a misunderstood picture of Scandinavian countries among Americans and that´s due to lack of information and poor connections between USA and Scandinavian countries. Maybe a student exchange program might give a deeper insight for Americans about how Swedes live and how life really is in Sweden.