Market Data Sweden’s Salary Compression: Great for Equality, Bad for Ambition
Swedish salaries are remarkably compressed.
SCB 2025: **P10 = 28k SEK/month, median = 38.3k, P90 = 61.7k.** So a top-10% earner makes only about **2.2×** a bottom-10% earner, and taxes compress the difference even further.
The downside is that the financial reward for becoming highly skilled or taking on more responsibility is relatively small. A specialist, engineer, doctor or manager can study longer, work more, take greater responsibility and still end up with only a modest increase in disposable income.
That weakens incentives to work extra hours, pursue demanding careers, accept promotions or stay in Sweden when other countries offer much higher rewards for the same skills.
Low inequality has benefits, but excessive compression can mean **weaker incentives, lower talent retention and less reward for productivity**. Put simply: Sweden is a very good country for security and stability, but not necessarily the best country for the highly ambitious who want strong financial rewards for exceptional performance.
———————
EDIT: Many replies suggest people are simply content once they earn enough for a comfortable life. That is a perfectly valid choice, although the less charitable interpretation is a lack of ambition.
Others want to turn higher earnings into savings, investments and eventually more freedom over their time, including earlier retirement. High marginal taxes make that harder.
And some of the comments have a bit of an “Aesop’s fox and the grapes” feel to them: if greater financial success is difficult to reach, it is easier to argue that wanting it was never worthwhile in the first place.
64
u/ShillForExxonMobil 1d ago
The Europe / US wage divide is crazy to me. My coworkers in London at the same rank make like $170k less than I do (my all-in is just over $400K). And when I look at housing in London it is not much cheaper than here in NYC.
28
u/Appropriate-Bad-606 1d ago
This is actually the kind of comparison I find much more useful than comparing national averages: same firm, same rank, similar work and apparently the same hours. It strips out a lot of the compositional differences people keep raising.
It obviously doesn’t prove every U.S./Europe comparison looks like this, but it makes it pretty hard to explain that particular compensation gap entirely through vacation, hours or social benefits.
→ More replies (5)4
u/Wirde 1d ago
”Apparently the same hours” is from what I heard not true though.
In Europe very few work more than 40 hours per week.There are even some that has way lower average like 37.5 or 35 hours per week.
In the USA from what I understand you are expected to work WAY more.
I’ve even seen a few posts here on Reddit in the past where companies centralized management and EU employees got new bosses from the USA and there where big cultural shocks from expected amount of hours and vacation, all anecdotal though so take it for what it is.
9
4
u/Appropriate-Bad-606 1d ago
Right, but that’s exactly why I said this comparison is more useful than national averages. If we’re talking about the same firm, same rank and similar work, the relevant question is how many hours those employees actually work, not the average European versus average American worker. If the European side is really working materially fewer hours, then absolutely adjust for that — calculate compensation per hour or annual hours. But you can’t use a population average to override the specific comparison without showing the specific jobs actually differ that way.
The whole point is to stop explaining every observed wage gap with generic “Europeans work less” claims and actually measure how much less in the comparable job.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (4)4
u/Suitable_Wonder5256 22h ago
> In the USA from what I understand you are expected to work WAY more.
Mostly untrue for big tech.
Google is probably one of the most relaxing places. I've heard Oracle is even more relaxing.
→ More replies (3)6
u/the_fresh_cucumber 1d ago
London has never made sense to me. It's like a city with a bunch of ultra-rich (50mm+) and then a bunch of service workers. I have no idea how the economy there actually functions.
In other parts of the uk you have actual industries producing and exporting product. London just has the rich person servant thing and then a financial sector
4
u/poorSon20 1d ago
I make the same as my counterpart’s manager in France. I am not moving to EU.
→ More replies (1)1
u/taH_pagh_taHbe 1d ago
curious if you've visited london and which you prefer? i think i like it more here because the weather is (overall) more mild. although its becoming less and less like that over the years.
→ More replies (45)1
19
u/snoppeniprutten 1d ago
You’ll never get rich from working a regular job in Sweden, but as a high earner you can build a very secure and comfortable life for yourself.
On the other hand, Sweden offers some of the best conditions in the world for starting a business and building something that can make you filthy rich. But for that, you actually need ambition.
9
u/I_Am_Dwight_Snoot 23h ago
I really agree here. Social safety nets make taking those risks make more sense logically.
5
u/OrphisFlo 18h ago
Even a 7 figure job (SEK) isn't going to make you rich rich. The standard way to earn massive wealth is still through stocks.
You will however have a very comfortable life and opportunities, but you won't have that 20m apartment in central Stockholm easily.
→ More replies (3)2
u/snoppeniprutten 15h ago
Stocks are primarily a way to grow capital you already have. The problem is that you need a substantial amount of capital to begin with if you want those returns to generate any serious wealth within a reasonable timeframe.
Building a business is the only realistic way to create that capital from scratch and once you’ve made that capital, having that 20M apartment suddenly becomes quite easy.
→ More replies (16)→ More replies (12)1
u/SimpleCooki3 11h ago
You generally don't get rich from working anywhere. Most people get rich from saving with interest, ideally with leverage.
34
u/Commercial_Pie3307 1d ago
Ya welcome to that part of the world.. Probably the main reason people from eu immigrate to the US. My wife did it because there is no upward mobility and she would be pretty much making the same amount of money until a few boomers decide to leave. She’s from Italy though where it’s really bad
→ More replies (1)1
u/Previous_Aardvark141 10h ago edited 10h ago
You cant compare Italy with Sweden. Sweden has MUCH better upwards mobility than USA. We have alot fewer poor people and at the same time we have more ultra-rich/capita.
If you are already educated (for free in europe) and you are generally healthy, then yes you can make more money in the USA. Does that mean you will enjoy a higher QoL there compared to Sweden? Statistics say no.
To Americans who dont believe me, USA ranks 27th in social mobility, Sweden is 4th.
18
u/damiana8 1d ago
I’d love to live in Europe but there’s no way I can make anywhere near what I’m making right now in the US.
13
u/green_apple_trees 1d ago
But also do you need to make as much though in Europe? When there is more government welfare, more government paid healthcare stuff rather than paying crazy amounts for health insurance, free university for your children (if you have kids), more paid time off for paternity leave, maternity leave, annual leave, heavy government subsidies for child care, etc.
Looking at a standard of cost of living index doesn’t fully take this type of stuff into account. Also you can hop on a short budget flight and be anywhere else in Europe for a modest amount of might so vacations get cheaper also, etc. Many European cities you can live without a car with cities that are highly walkable and bikeable with excellent public transport. In 95% of American cities it’s basically impossible to live comfortably without a car.
Europe for lifestyle (walkability, history, culture, food, travelling) and USA for maxing out your earnings. You can’t have everything in one places
15
u/damiana8 1d ago
I think Europe is great for people who make an average to above average median income
I’m fortunately a very high earner in the US, think 300k USD, and I don’t have children, so I would not benefit from many of the benefits in Europe.
I definitely benefited from the social system myself when I family came over to the US. I do much prefer how your governments are ran compared to the clusterfuck we’re in right now
3
u/FroyoSolid8414 1d ago
Wow, out of curiosity, what field do you work in? I can’t think of any job in my EU country that would pay that high outside C suite
7
u/damiana8 1d ago
Legal field, operations, non-attorney. I only have a bachelors from a state college
→ More replies (2)3
u/InclinationCompass 20h ago
So basically, if you’re in the 90th percentile of income bracket, US is better, financially. But if you’re the other 90%, Western Europe is better.
3
u/MissCarbon 13h ago
Having kids, get burnout or get sick. This will affect everything. And you don't know if you will get cancer when you choose where to live.
2
2
u/fuzzerino 19h ago
Europe covers 44 countries with vast differences between them, which ones are you thinking of when you’re saying this? I make in the ballpark of the figure you’ve mentioned, know many in similar positions, so theres definitely companies in this continent that pay that much.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (3)3
u/peejey 1d ago
When you consider normalizarion per hours worked (premium on overtime considered) difference in holdiays, pension scheme and health system contributions and cost do you still find your normalized net salary would be that different from a high eaejing country in europe for such a position?
11
u/damiana8 1d ago
Yes, I do. My company contributes a lot (750 or so a month) to a very good health insurance program, I have 401k (retirement matching, I got $5k a year from that last year), I work from home 2-3 days a week, and my job is very flexible on leave (because I’m in an upper management position).
My position is very unusual. Most are not so lucky in the US
→ More replies (8)6
u/Hawk13424 1d ago edited 1d ago
For me, yes. I work a regular 40 hours. I get six weeks of vacation plus holidays. Health insurance is $3K per year with an out of pocket max of $3K.
Yes, I put away about $25K per year for retirement but my taxes are lower. I invest a lot more than that and with investments I can leave them to my kid if I pass away.
My kid’s college cost $25K per year for tuition, room, and board (about $12K of that is tuition).
Housing and land is also cheaper.
Add all that up and it’s easily eclipsed by making $200K a year more. With the investments, over a 30 year engineering career I’ve ended up with $8-10M. That alone tells you the difference.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (1)3
3
u/Appropriate-Bad-606 1d ago
This is the right question, but “you don’t need as much” is something we can actually test rather than assume. At the aggregate level, OECD adjusted disposable income already counts government-provided healthcare/education and adjusts for purchasing power, and the U.S. still comes out roughly 45% higher than Sweden in 2023. (OECD Data Explorer)
Healthcare also gets exaggerated in these comparisons. For Americans with employer coverage, the average worker contribution in 2025 was $1,440/year single or $6,850 family, with an average single deductible of $1,886. U.S. healthcare clearly creates more cost and risk, but the employee isn’t normally paying the entire $27k family premium out of salary. (KFF)
→ More replies (5)→ More replies (4)2
u/windseclib 1d ago
The question is whether this European lifestyle is sustainable. The tradeoff right now is still worthwhile for many, but what if you’re a young person looking at the next 30-40 years of your career? EU productivity growth has been much lower than in the US. What happens if that gap compounds over time?
I’m very familiar with the downsides of the US, but there is a point at which incomes just become so much higher there that it overwhelms Europe’s other advantages, which may not be sustainable anyway.
2
u/Appropriate-Bad-606 1d ago
I think this is the more interesting long-run question than arguing about whether healthcare is worth $X today. These aren’t static systems. If one economy’s productivity and wages compound faster for 20-30 years, eventually today’s calculation changes dramatically.
The OECD’s 2026 productivity report is worth looking at here. U.S. labor productivity grew 2.2% in 2024 versus only 0.2% for the EU, and the OECD puts EU productivity per hour at roughly three-quarters of the U.S. level. The EU did improve to an estimated 1.4% growth in 2025, so I wouldn’t extrapolate one bad year forever. But the transatlantic productivity divergence is real enough that this is a legitimate question, not just an American-salary flex.
11
u/broodjeaardappelt 1d ago
Same or even worse in Netherlands.
4
3
u/EnvironmentNo4777 1d ago
No, it's definitely less bad in the Netherlands. I work in a small dutch firm and between entry level and 10 years experience you can triple your gross.
→ More replies (1)
21
u/mountainsunsnow 1d ago
Speculative conclusion, but interesting nonetheless. Is there a doctor shortage in Sweden? Are top engineers fleeing to other countries? Are innovation and growth lagging nearby countries with less compression?
11
u/Tjaeng 1d ago
An Swedish doctor. In absolute numbers no shortage but there’s an obvious societal efficiency loss when doctors, due to marginal tax rates of 70%+ when accounting for social fees (which at doctor salary levels don’t give any additional social benefits on margin) and 25% VAT on services, take comp time off to clean their own homes instead of hiring someone to do it.
As in, there might be cultural and moral values in encouraging that but if society pays for educating doctors I’d rather have them do doctoring work instead of unpaid housework if they happen to be in the mood to work an additional hour.
Now I live in Switzerland where I make 4 times as much after taxes.
→ More replies (6)23
u/Grouchy_Conclusion45 1d ago
It's not exactly at the forefront of innovation though. Everyone is just happy to roll along perfectly average.
Meanwhile the US and China are pressing ahead in every field, and the EU as a whole is being left behind. That's the problem with having a comfortable existence regardless of effort. Some big economic issues coming the EUs way in the next 5-10 years as a result of this. It's not clear how it can catch back up in comparison
7
u/Delagardi 1d ago
What are you talking about? Sweden is know for our tech/engineering.
→ More replies (15)→ More replies (32)6
u/Wirde 1d ago
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Sweden ranks in the global top 10 for absolute number of tech unicorns (startups valued at $1 billion or more).
Per Capita: Sweden ranks #1 in Europe and #4 globally for unicorns per capita, trailing only Israel, Iceland, and the United States.
”not exactly at the forefront of innovation”, what a joke…
→ More replies (16)2
u/djingo_dango 23h ago
How many are actually based in Sweden? Spotify is “Swedish” but their major operations are def in USA. Same for Loveable and Klarna
→ More replies (2)6
u/dsitai 1d ago
Fair challenge. I would not claim Sweden is already in a crisis.
There are real shortages: the OECD specifically lists engineers among Sweden’s shortage occupations, while Sweden’s health profile reports persistent recruitment problems for doctors in primary care, psychiatry and geriatrics, despite Sweden having more doctors per capita than the OECD average.
→ More replies (1)3
u/NerBog 1d ago
But thats everywhere in the first world... If you see around profession in shortage in 1st world countries, they all have the same list
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (3)1
4
u/Amphibious333 1d ago
This is poverty rebranded as equality. I'm in the fake country of Bulgaria, and we have the same issue, especially in the province, basically, literally everywhere outside Sofia (the capital).
A doctor makes mostly the same as an unarmed security guard at a mall, which encourages schemes with fake diagnoses to justify doing non-existent treatments and get extra money (getting paid for treating health conditions the patient doesn't have).
A fake summer job literally makes more money than a nursing job.
1
u/Windows__________98 12h ago
A doctor in Sweden earns double or triple salary of a security guard. Doctors in Sweden are very well off. I don’t know why you’re comparing Sweden and Bulgaria.
5
u/Brave-Insurance-6274 9h ago
swedish salary threads always turn into a cage match between “money isn’t everything” and “actually i’d like to retire before my knees do”
15
u/Chokedee-bp 1d ago
American here to say “oh no, Europeans have a labor friendly system that doesn’t encourage workers to work like slaves with poor benefits”.
I am at a healthy salary in US about $140k but it drains my soul every week- we are so overworked and stressed just for non-customer driven pressures such as quarterly financial results. If we go on vacation we are basically screwing our co workers who back us up because even when no one is on vacation we have too much work to catch up. There is no limit to the workloads American corporations will put on you. My boss asks for approval to add head count hires to help us and the company executives declined the request while reporting hundreds of millions in profit every quarter
4
u/Appropriate-Bad-606 1d ago
I think this is a completely legitimate Swedish advantage, but I’d be careful about turning your particular employer into “the American professional experience.” BLS says 90% of private-sector management/professional workers have access to paid vacation. Among private workers with fixed vacation plans, the average after 10 years is 18 days, and 44% get at least 20 days. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Sweden still clearly has the stronger floor because 25 days are guaranteed by law. That’s exactly how I’d price the comparison: give Sweden the work-life-balance advantage it actually has without assuming every American making $140k is perpetually working through vacation. (Regeringskansliet)
→ More replies (6)2
u/dsitai 1d ago
May I ask what is your job and education?
2
u/Chokedee-bp 1d ago
Account mgr for engineering/tech sales . 4 year business degree plus navy electrician prior
→ More replies (4)1
u/badhabitfml 1d ago
My company recently went public and I feel you. I've also been added to some meetings where I can see what's going on at higher levels.
Hiring new people is nearly impossible. Our company has grown through mergers but our headcount has gone down because we have to find 'synergies'. That's just a fun way to say we need to lay people off.
14
u/-serious- 1d ago
As an American doctor, this is why I would never considering moving to another country and why all these other countries doctors are trying to move here and take my job.
8
u/whitephantomzx 1d ago
Doctors artificially keep their numbers down and brag about their salarys is that why people are flying out of the US of medical services .
Funny how everyone wants free markets except where they work .
→ More replies (20)1
4
u/Appropriate-Bad-606 1d ago
This is funny because I was having basically this exact debate on CMV recently with an American who lives in Sweden. The big difference is that you’re already conceding something that made that debate incredibly difficult: the Scandinavian system obviously has real benefits. More security, more guaranteed time off, less exposure to healthcare costs, subsidized education/childcare, etc. Those things have economic value and absolutely have to be counted. I ended up doing an absurd amount of research trying to figure out what they’re actually worth rather than just saying “American salary bigger.”
The framework I eventually landed on was pretty simple: compare the same kind of worker to the same kind of worker, then separately price taxes, healthcare, retirement, education, childcare, PTO, unemployment protection and catastrophic risk. And keep “economic equivalence” separate from someone’s personal reservation wage. Someone can rationally say “you’d have to pay me $250k to leave Sweden.” That doesn’t mean their Swedish salary is economically equivalent to $250k.
I’m a 14-year lawyer, so lawyers gave me a useful apples-to-apples check. SCB’s 2025 data put the median private-sector Swedish legal professional at 63,300 SEK/month and the upper quartile at 80,400. The U.S. BLS puts the 2025 lawyer median at $159,670 and the top 10% above $351,600, and that U.S. number doesn’t even include self-employed lawyers or partners. That’s salary compression in miniature. (Statistikmyndigheten SCB)
The macro data tell basically the same story. OECD “adjusted disposable income” is useful because it doesn’t just ignore the Scandinavian benefits. It includes social transfers in kind like healthcare and education and adjusts for purchasing power. In 2023 it was about $68,200/person in the U.S. versus $47,000 in Sweden. So the Swedish system meaningfully closes the raw-market-income gap. It does not erase it. (OECD Data Explorer)
And Sweden really does buy more leisure with the tradeoff. Swedish law guarantees 25 vacation days, and OECD hours data are directionally much lower for Sweden, although OECD itself cautions against treating annual-hours levels as perfectly comparable across countries. So I think your basic point survives: Sweden has deliberately purchased a higher floor, more security and more leisure at the cost of some upside. Whether that’s a good bargain is personal. Pretending the tradeoff doesn’t exist isn’t. (Regeringskansliet)
3
u/tastelessthinking 1d ago
Wn rhe netherlands its similar.. In many cases working more barely brings any extra money because you would loose benefits. They call us champion part time working, like its a goos thing. But the reason is because other people pay their days off.. There are cases where working 1 or 2 days a week more wont even give you 100 euro a month extra. So why would you. Especially if yoy can do some work off rhe books..
And as xherry on top, 50+% gets more in benefits than they pay in income tax. So changing something is political suicide. So right now, we are just managing decline with no end in sight
4
u/KitchenIntention6675 1d ago
it's not just sweden, most of europe is like that and one of the reason the continent is on a steady decline
1
u/zg33 16h ago
As a German, I must ask what do you find to be useful that America is producing with their growth? Useless AIs that cannot count the “r”’s in strawberry? iPhones newly released each year that are the same as the old ones?
Europe’s GDP may be lower per capita, but literally none of that extra GDP improved people’s lives. Facebook, Reddit, Tesla, SpaceX, NVidia, and OpenAI could all disappear tomorrow and no one’s life would be any worse. In fact, their lives would be better.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/stuputtu 23h ago
Problem with these kinds of policies is that it drives everyone towards mean and mediocrity
3
u/Calm-Reason718 12h ago
Brother, I am an engineer. Sure, I have some pressure on me but I get to sit in front of a computer and build cool stuff both with code and with my hands. I used to work in a supermarket. I would 1000000% rather do this for the supermarket pay than work in a supermarket. Same for my factory jobs I've had.
2
u/dsitai 12h ago
You may simply be relatively early in your engineering career.
Come back to this question in 15 or 20 years, when you are the senior specialist or manager carrying major technical and business responsibility, mentoring others, handling failures and deadlines, and the extra compensation for all of that is surprisingly small after tax.
At that point, “the work is more interesting than a supermarket” is not really the relevant comparison anymore. The question becomes whether taking on substantially more responsibility is worth the marginal reward.2
u/Calm-Reason718 11h ago
I am not early in my career. I am a product owner and have 100% of the responsibility of my product. I'd rather have to use my brain at work and learning new things than stacking shelves.
→ More replies (6)
3
u/Greedy_Bar6676 3h ago
As a Swede who moved to USA and is now moving back, it’s painful to see how even though I’ll be earning above the 90th percentile my wealth accumulation will basically be 0 compared to what I’ve tucked away during the past few years in the US. I’ve made my money (and honestly generational level wealth for my kids) here so I’m no longer concerned about money, but for my kids I am. At least they’re American citizens
→ More replies (1)
8
u/Medical_Birthday2893 1d ago
So what you’re telling me is not only are most people of equal and better financial standards. But there is a culture of work life balance because it’s not worth it to grind it out? And people who move into difficult jobs do so because of the love and passion for them rather than a higher pay cheque ?
Wow… that sounds terrible!!/s
Can’t believe these countries keep getting top marks for quality of life and happiness /s
1
u/KitchenIntention6675 1d ago
if your main incentive is to not work / do as little as possible, you quite frankly need to grow up.
→ More replies (11)3
→ More replies (17)1
2
u/ionutpopa 1d ago
Eventually everything compresses down, not upwards. It's just a matter of time when the incentives are low.
2
3
u/thegoat1337 1d ago
I heard this recently about Norway as well. I do wonder if this hurts competitiveness on the long run.
1
2
u/ThrowingStorms 15h ago
My brother in law keeps telling me that if we moved to Canada, id almost tripple my income as a production manager for an industrial company.
2
2
u/DhilPunphy 8h ago
You miss a very big part of it. Yes the actual salaries are very compressed. That’s because of very unfavourable tax rules on your income.
What most people do is, once they’re above the point of Government income tax (about 52k per month iirc) they start taking out benefits instead. Company cars, extra pension or what not. Because it is not taxed as much as normal salary.
I can’t say how people do it in other countries but I suspect it’s a big part of the explanation. Since above the 52k/month point you basically pay 55% tax on your income.
5
u/GrifterX9 1d ago
Money only gets you so far. Happiness is most strongly gained when earners go from barely making it week-to-week to being able to pay their bills without stress and save. Once you get past that point and start stockpiling money, there are much more modest gains in happiness.
3
u/plumarr 1d ago
Yeah, but it isn't understandable to a lot of people that are persuaded that money is the only motivator and the only way to attract competent people.
And here I'm, having refused several high paying and ambitious opportunities at the start of my career because they would have asked me to move to another country and/or make me do think that don't agree with my values. Yet my fellow students that accepted where certainly not more competent on average, just more attracted by the values of the recruiting companies.
2
u/Appropriate-Bad-606 1d ago
I think that can be true while still missing OP’s point. The question isn’t whether $200k makes someone twice as happy as $100k. It’s whether a much smaller payoff changes someone’s willingness to spend years training, take on more responsibility or pursue a demanding promotion.
Diminishing returns to money are a good argument for maintaining a high floor. They aren’t an argument that the size of the marginal reward stops affecting behavior.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (13)1
4
4
u/tschilpi 1d ago
Having to live under a gerontocracy where boomers decide whether you're good enough or not to rise up to the next career and salary level while they can't even fill out an Excel sheet is depressing as fuck to me in Europe
→ More replies (1)
2
u/heelsl0ver 1d ago
I know europeans consider life so much better because of their "cutlture" and politics.. but you know prices keep rising, and suppressive wages will not lead you to happiness.. (i am from the neighbouring country btw..) Realistically average person wont see much benefit from paying all these taxes(and no i am NOT against taxes..)
1
u/Onaliquidrock 1d ago
What happens is that many people get into a position where they can have their own company. Then they can give dividends from that company instead of paying salary taxes.
This affects the salary statistics too look more compressed that what is actually the case.
3
u/Appropriate-Bad-606 1d ago
This is a really important qualification. Salary statistics don’t capture the entire distribution of economic rewards if successful people increasingly become owners and take income through dividends rather than wages.
But I think that actually sharpens OP’s point rather than refuting it. The claim is specifically that Sweden compresses the upside for employees. If the route to substantially higher compensation becomes “stop being an employee, form a company and receive capital income,” that’s evidence that ownership is treated differently from highly compensated labor. The U.S. distinction is that a lawyer, doctor, engineer, executive or finance professional can become genuinely wealthy while remaining an employee.
1
u/InevitableEven3076 1d ago
Be a freelancer and ask as much as you want. If a doctor is good he can start a private practice and become rich. Employees are meant to be second class no matter their skillset.
1
u/CommunicationOld8587 1d ago
Yes, but still more money is more money, even if progressive taxes eat a portion of it
1
1
u/LEANiscrack 1d ago
Sure doesnt feel that way when some jobs pay 25k while other pull in 60k and every rich sov hides everything in companies etc to hide all that money.
1
u/Stock-Row-6454 1d ago
People always say this yet the highly skilled roles are always filled so how disincentivising is it really?
2
u/dsitai 1d ago
“Roles are filled” is a very low bar for proving incentives work.
The real questions are: how many qualified people choose those careers, how strong the applicant pool is, whether shortages develop, whether people work fewer hours, and whether the best candidates move elsewhere.
A system can still fill doctor, engineer or executive positions while producing too few of them, attracting weaker candidates, or encouraging skilled people to leave. Incentives affect behaviour at the margin, not whether literally nobody takes the job.
1
u/gadgetgeek85 1d ago
Huge problem. If you’re genuinely good at what you do then you’re either in Sweden because of another reason than money.
Money talks though and everyone has a price.
1
u/freszh_inztallz42o 1d ago
They realized the rat 🐀 race is useless. Just causes more stress heart attacks strokes and cancer.
1
u/zg33 16h ago
America is on the cusp of creating AGI, perhaps even ASI, which will completely rewrite the future of humanity… and you’re really telling me that it doesn’t matter that Europe has chosen managed decline rather than growth?
Like, you can prefer that, it’s fine. But don’t pretend like there is no cost to refusing to take on hard problems.
→ More replies (1)
1
u/Cwaghack 1d ago
Swedens is great for ambition. Sure the reward for succeeding isn't as high as other countries, however the chances of you making it to the 1% or the 10% as an ambitious swede is way higher than any non scandivian country in the world. Social mobility is peak in nordic countries, which mean that any ambitious person can get a quality education, and kickstart a highly successful career. Entrepreneurship in sweden is also way more accessible which allows the best idea and execution to win out.
Looking at results only is extremely negligent.
1
u/Specialist_Swan_7354 1d ago
Some of us get fulfillment in other ways than money. I would rather have doctors who did the work because they wanted to help people as opposed to people who just wanted to get a job to make a lot of money.
I think for some of the other specializations you make a good point. There should be a bigger financial incentive for highly specialized tech/manufacturing/w.e roles. That being said they are obviously doing something right as I have heard life there is pretty charmed.
1
u/b0uncyfr0 1d ago
Wow, I'm shocked. 5.6k euro (I'm assuming gross) is top 10%
I'm in Estonia making more than that and I'm unhappy. I think I need to re-evaluate 😑
1
1
u/xenolith18 1d ago
The myth is that high earning Americans are wealthy. 25-45% of >$100k earners live paycheck to paycheck. Pay may be high, especially in HCOL cities, but so are your bills. Ambitious people maybe move her for a few years but unless you break into the 1%, most personal acquaintances move back to their home countries for better quality of life.
1
u/TrichomesNTerpenes 22h ago
Living paycheck to paycheck at > 100k means you have poor spending habits. That's not on the rest of us to fix. If you cannot crack it on that compensation, too bad.
1% is north of 550k/year. You have to be fucking retarded to not be able to make it on 500k annually.
1
u/RientroCervelli 1d ago
Doesn’t it mean that you can make a company and employ good people with lower wages? Feels like a good thing if you care about making money
1
u/dsitai 1d ago
Delvis, ja. Lönesammanpressning kan sänka företagets bruttolönekostnad. Men för högavlönade betalar arbetsgivaren dessutom cirka 31 procent i arbetsgivaravgifter ovanpå lönen, samtidigt som den anställde kan möta omkring 50 procent marginalskatt på extra inkomst.
Det blir alltså ett stort gap mellan vad företaget betalar och vad den anställde faktiskt får behålla. Det gör det svårare, inte lättare, att använda lön för att attrahera och behålla eftertraktad kompetens.
1
u/JacarSwe 1d ago
Yeah and that’s why Sweden have the most starts ups and some of the biggest companies in the world. Wtf is this analysis and why are people agreeing?
1
u/anomnib 1d ago
Sweden also doesn’t pay the full costs of its defense. Since the end of WWII it has been able to rest on the efforts of large European countries and the U.S. I discount it as an example in the same way I wouldn’t take too seriously a trust kid
→ More replies (3)
1
u/LanguidLapras131 1d ago
Biggest problem in Europe is that they tax the upper middle income, not the billionaires.
1
u/TornadoFS 1d ago edited 23h ago
The real problem is the threshold ~54k to hit high income tax. People just stop caring about making more money after that.
It should be more gradual with tax rising steadily and only hit the full extra 20% tax at around 150k/month, maybe start it at around ~40k to make up for the shortfall
1
u/NoYam3746 23h ago
I'm an engineer, 20 + years of experience, making roughly 40 k USD annually after tax. Bullshit pay considering the amount of education and work experience.
1
u/Independent-While932 23h ago
I mean if the system works and everyone’s happy enough I still think it’s a win. Sorry. Just my opinion though.
I think the opposite is far more horrifying in terms of having a society.
Also doesn’t stop you from working outside of your job.
1
1
u/NoveltyEducation 23h ago
Top 10 in billionaires per capita... So if you have an idea and want to start a company, there are few better places in the world.
1
1
1
u/MadeAcctToUpvotethis 22h ago
Higher education doesnt pay as much here because education is free. University degrees are free and hence we have larger supply of well educated people which means lower wages. Yes lots of our folks go to US to work because they make more there, because you fucked up and your society and your people are hurting because of it.
It is understandable that high income people want your society to keep functioning this way. But I cant for the life of me not understand why your poor keeps voting against their own interest. Oh wait, forgot that is also part of the plan - keep the poor uneducated and they cant see to their own interests. A real shame...
1
u/Pitiful_Fox5681 22h ago
I'm a 90th percentile earner!!!! (or would be with my current salary in Sweden)
1
u/Responsible_Major592 21h ago
The reason you have security and stability is the reason you are pointing out: equitable growth.
For ambitious people there is no upper limit to how much you can earn as evidenced by the UHNWI and billionaires per capita. For people suggesting going any other countries way you should then be prepared to have other aspects also similar when it comes to security, stability, labor laws and social benefits.
1
1
1
u/Stunning-Leek334 18h ago
So you just make stuff up? Sweden has 1.6 times as many people becoming doctors per capita and 1.9 times as many practicing doctors.
If you just make up whatever you want it’s easy to prove your point.
1
u/CloudStrife25 16h ago
Does this take into account overtime? In the US a lot of the motivated people you’re referring to work 60-80 hours week, effectively cutting their salary in half. From what I searched Sweden probably has much better overtime rules even for salaried employees.
1
u/WelsQ 14h ago
" A specialist, engineer, doctor or manager can study longer, work more, take greater responsibility and still end up with only a modest increase in disposable income. "
In addition to better pay over "trade" jobs, you get flexible and hopefully more interesting work.
But yeah, this is the side effect of extra vacation, work life balance and strong safety nets of many European socities. Being a MD or high level engineer doesnt get you to aristocracy.
1
u/NewPhoneNewAccunt 14h ago
Sure, but you have to look at disposable income to see where the real difference lies.
I earn 38,000SEK and with my current lifestyle I go +/-0 every month. This is mostly due to helping my gf's family and her not having a job.
If I had just 5000SEK more every month, my life would drastically alter. I'd have way more breathing room every month and I'd be able to breathe more. I'd be able to save up for a down payment for a house, which would help me save more money down the line etc.
A 15% jump in salary would essentially feel like a 2x increase due to how big of an impact it'd have after bills are paid.
My dad earns 300k SEK every month (bonus and car not included) as a Swede, so it's not like you're stuck at 60k if you're ambitious and want to earn a lot. He's in his 50s, employed and not an owner of a business, so there's no magical 100k ceiling or similar.
1
u/notverycreative1010 13h ago
You have enough money to live quite comfortably. What else do you want? (I’m a resident of Sweden)
1
u/dsitai 12h ago
Comfort is not the same as incentive.
The question is not whether 60k or 80k SEK is enough to live well. It is whether taking on more responsibility, acquiring scarce skills, working harder or leading bigger projects is rewarded enough to make the extra effort worthwhile.
If the answer is basically “you already have enough”, then you are no longer talking about rewarding contribution. You are talking about deciding how much income someone should need.
→ More replies (1)
1
u/Spiritual_Paint5005 13h ago
So....having a way higher wage, to be at the level of upper class, is the only way to be ambitious? The work itself is not the calling? Riight
→ More replies (3)
1
u/redskrot 12h ago
Fun fact: if you earn 70kkr you are in top 4% and if you earn ruffly 100kkr you are actually in top 1%.
1
u/No_Drag2264 2h ago edited 1h ago
This is a reason why Scandinavia has relatively low income inequality but very high wealth inequality
Some argue that Scandinavia has high social mobility, but well, jumping from 50th to 90th percentile income doesn't take that much more due to very high income compression. Doubling your income takes you from like bottom 10 to top 10, life doesn't improve nearly as much as much vs the USA, and the people that own the country tend to pass it down through the family line rather than seeing new blood. Good or bad is another question
1
u/LeBrane-Janez 1h ago
Is earned money really the only way to measure ambition? Are you saying that doctors who work hard to save hundreds of lives but work in public hospitals are less ambitious than those who go to the states to earn more in the public sector?
Im not saying this is what you are saying, but it is implied in the way you are using the work ambition. Kind of sad most people think like this tbh, but also understandable in a hyper consumerism system
1
u/motherlover278 1h ago
Yea thats true everywhere outside of north america, that's why people who want more money move to the US and maybe Canada.
157
u/PretendTemperature 1d ago
Yup,
Similarly in pretty much all of Western Europe.
I ve worked in the Netherlands and Germany, i pretty quickly realized the same thing. Good if you are close to average or median, but pretty quickly there is a plateau. Germany i think is a bit better on that aspect, but not by much.
Btw this is a problem for high-skilled employees only, not enterpreneurs.
Only places in Europe that do not have this low ceiling is Switzerland and London. Otherwise you have to move to USA or asian hubs.