Looks Like It's Time To Move To Denmark

[Joyrex]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/business/international/living-wages-served-in-denmark-fast-food-restaurants.html

 

 

 

COPENHAGEN — On a recent afternoon, Hampus Elofsson ended his 40-hour workweek at a Burger King and prepared for a movie and beer with friends. He had paid his rent and all his bills, stashed away some savings, yet still had money for nights out.

That is because he earns the equivalent of $20 an hour — the base wage for fast-food workers throughout Denmark and two and a half times what many fast-food workers earn in the United States.

 

So, to get a fair perspective, can any Danes here confirm or at least provide perspective on this?

 

I'm getting tired of how we do things in the States...

[olo]

The question may be, how much does fastfood @ BK in Denmark cost?

[Lucas]

I'm not sure that the amount of money workers earn in fast foods indicates anything about the quality of life in a country though.

[Hugh Mughnus]

a big mac meal in Denmark costs 65 krones, so $11 USD. (can someone Danish confirm that's an accurate cost?)

 

so yeah they make double but they spend twice as much. It's a wash.

 

The sandwich alone is $5.37 according to this link, making denmark the 4th most expensive big mac location in the world.

 

http://nomadcapitalist.com/2013/11/24/top-5-expensive-countries-on-the-big-mac-index/

[chim]

The higher pay is compensation for having to speak that guttural excuse for a language.

[delet...]

Yes but they Have a much better support structure for low wage workers in denmark, compared to the US so joy's point stands.

[Adieu]

I wonder if the big mac is of higher quality in Denmark.

[delet...]

I wonder if the big mac is of higher quality in Denmark.

Hah, good point, certainly meat processing standards would he better at the very least. Not to mention all those workers getting paid more, not being illegal Mexican slave labourers.

[MisterE]

Yes but they Have a much better support structure for low wage workers in denmark, compared to the US so joy's point stands.

such as? and how much of this may come down to their economy possibly doing better than than US's, rather than increased minimum wage or forced social redistribution of wealth or whatever?

[psn]

Check out the Big Mac Index, people. Norway has the most expensive Big Macs in the world.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index

 

http://www.statista.com/statistics/274326/big-mac-index-global-prices-for-a-big-mac/

 

 

[Herr Jan]

I'm really not sure about this so please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't school + college free in Denmark? And health care really cheap / free too? And you make a lot of money because you don't have to pay a lot of income tax, but they compensate that by having the world's highest taxes on products? Isn't that why for example beer and cigarettes are so expensive (just like in Sweden / Norway)?

Overall, it's more of a 'social orientated' welfare state compared to the US, so like delet said, low wage workers have a better position.

edit: nevermind, income tax ranges from 37 to 63%.

[MisterE]

@psn- and thats one thing lefties in the US crying over minimum wage never seem to get. you force an increased minimum wage, and the prices on everything are going to go up to match. what may not go up in equal amount would be the wages people were earning just above minimum wage, who maybe had to work in some factory for 10yrs to get raises to make that much. a new minimum wage law wouldn't force THEIR wages to go up, since they are several dollars above minimum wage. but now some kid in high school working at mcdonalds makes about as much as this guy whos been busting his ass in the factory for 10yrs to take care of his family. smart. not only that, but the kids wages go up, the hamburgers the kids make go up, so its a wash for the kid as delet says- the actual cost in terms of fraction of that kids wages for him to buy one of his own burgers is about the same as it was before. but for the factory guy, everything is now more expensive but his wages didn't go up to compensate. its just another way to fuck the middle class.

[MisterE]

I'm really not sure about this so please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't school + college free in Denmark? And health care really cheap / free too?

edit: nevermind, income tax ranges from 37 to 63%.

so i guess that stuff isn't really 'free', is it? just someone else is being forced to pay for it, and you're forced to pay for everyone elses. instead of people paying for their own. also the gov takes the money in, has to redistribute it back to everyone they took it from, which requires a bureaucracy, which means people who need to be paid for the time they spend taking your money and giving it back to you. which means they get a cut of your money. which means maybe youd have more if you just kept it and spent it on what you needed yourself in the first place.

[psn]

@MisterE Norway also scores high on other scales:

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where-to-be-born_Index

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_cities_for_expatriate_employees

 

I don't think middle class squeeze is a problem at all here in Norway, and we've had minimum wages for decades.

 

Sure, bureaucracy costs money, but so does inflation eating up your savings through 20 years for your kids' college. And so does health insurance.

 

I definitely don't mind living here in Norway, nor paying around 40% tax on income and 25% tax on goods.

[doublename]

 

I wonder if the big mac is of higher quality in Denmark.

Hah, good point, certainly meat processing standards would he better at the very least. Not to mention all those workers getting paid more, not being illegal Mexican slave labourers.

American fast food is always better outside America.

[MisterE]

@psn- well of course you don't, you're used to it. but you have no way of knowing if things are necessarily better because of those taxes, than they would be for you if you were expected to have a bit more personal responsibility and got to keep the money you made and spend it on whatever you wanted. and maybe eventually a higher minimum wage would result in the wages just above that to go up as well, but then so did the prices so what was the actual point? the only net result there is inflation. and maybe your country was at least smart enough to slowly increase the minimum wage, so everything else had time to adjust and catch up (again, just pointlessly inflating everything to be larger amounts), but here in america we actually have people who want to force the minimum wage up several dollars an hour all at once. i guarantee you that the prices on everything WILL go up, right away. they always have when the minimum wage goes up. but will the wages people earned just above minimum go up, right away?

[psn]

I rest my case on my subjective experience, like you say. And on the slightly more objective Where To Be Born index.

 

8)

[MisterE]

also i can't personally put much weight on those kinds of indexes that attempt to assign a number to how nice it is to live in this or that country. its a group of people somewhere who pick a set of criteria that seems right to them, and then somehow defines how they measure those criteria, then they average all of them down to a single number.

to put it nicely-

its retarded.

 

(not to mention those criteria and how they assign numbers to them are all surely influenced by their political views on How Things Should Be, which i may or may not (probably not) agree with).

[doublename]

This thread got too serious.

[Hugh Mughnus]

its a group of people somewhere who pick a set of criteria that seems right to them, and then somehow defines how they measure those criteria, then they average all of them down to a single number.

to put it nicely-

its retarded.

 

 

 

HDI is not just some arbitrarily selected criteria. It is very specific, measurable things relating to quality of life such as life expectancy and access to education. These things are generally accepted across the planet as things that are nice to have. Not "retarded" in the least.

[YangYing]

so, is watmm danish now?

[delet...]

 

 

Yes but they Have a much better support structure for low wage workers in denmark, compared to the US so joy's point stands.

such as? and how much of this may come down to their economy possibly doing better than than US's, rather than increased minimum wage or forced social redistribution of wealth or whatever?

And is why their economy doing better mrE. It's because of the way it's constructed. It evens out the extremes of behaviour and allows all members the opportunity to contribute economically, socially and intellectually. The first gives you a more diverse range of medium to small businesses as everyone has spare cash, these empowered people increase the velocity of the money, so it goes around more times rather than being hoarded. The second reduces petty crime, lowers health care costs increases social cohesion etc. And the third allows for a competitive advantage over states which overlook their intellectual capital, doesn't burden them with debt so they are freer to pursue unorthodox goals, new concepts and business strategies, put their earnings back through the economy.

[MisterE]

heh, you're right. people suggesting we should experiment with the economy by artificially increasing the lowest wages, should be taken lightly. and the idea that the government should have more power over everything as well. we shouldn't think about things like how dictatorships with more power, when corrupted, can do more damage.

 

 

its a group of people somewhere who pick a set of criteria that seems right to them, and then somehow defines how they measure those criteria, then they average all of them down to a single number.

to put it nicely-

its retarded.

 

 

 

HDI is not just some arbitrarily selected criteria. It is very specific, measurable things relating to quality of life such as life expectancy and access to education. These things are generally accepted across the planet as things that are nice to have. Not "retarded" in the least.

 

there is a hell of a lot of wiggle room in the selection of those criteria and how they assign numbers to them. at the end of the day its a group of rich people picking which country they like best. it may not be totally arbitrary like i said, but the things they chose are still just a matter of their opinion, and probably just about anyone who looks at their list of what's important could find things to disagree with in terms of inclusions and exclusions. besides that, climate is one of their criteria which has nothing to do with this discussion, nor do many of the other criteria. but these guys are boiling their opinions down into a single number value, listing countries accordingly and calling it a 'where to be born' list. that is highly absurd. of course you would view it as a scientific fact, you prob have a copy of the economist on your coffee table right now.

[Friendly Foil]

"High living costs" is the understatement of the century. What a shit article.

 

"The grass is always greener on the other side" etc. etc. Many danes I know admire the system in the US where one actually keeps the money they earn, instead of paying over 1/3 of it in taxes, so some weak idiot can go to the doctor ever two days because his/her toe hurt.

[auxien]

But from all I've heard and seen, it's relatively difficult to immigrate to these countries (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, etc.). So even if Denmark's the place to live, you had better have some unique and valuable skills, or be born there.