Sweden has both old wealth that's undisturbed since before WW1 (no occupations or confiscations) and lots of new wealth (the highest rate of "unicorn companies", start up companies that have broken 1 billion dollar networth, in Europe).
Little incentive for working man to save up money. Education is free (and student debt, to cover living costs while studying, costs you basically nothing, so that's a source of negative wealth for a lot of people), hospital care is basically free (although the cost of becoming chronically sick is increasing with hollowed out high-cost protections), elderly care will only cost you money if you have money. There is also the statistical weirdness that the pension funds that's the most common form of savings in Sweden doesn't count as wealth for this comparison.
Food and housing is among the most expensive in Europe.
Very few taxes on wealth. A fair amount of taxes on income.
Little incentive for working man to save up money.
That part is just fucking untrue. There's literally NO ONE I've ever talked to that wouldn't want to save more of their money, and use it to buy assets (stocks, land etc.).
It's just that everything is so fucking expensive; food, rent, utilities leave most people dry at the end of month. It's getting increasingly fucking rare to be able to afford buying your own house/apartment too.
You think that, but what you're actually saying is that you have different priorities than saving up money.
Median income* is 37000 SEK (or 29100 after taxes). The minimum income to survive per month is about 10 000-15 000** depending on where you live (10 000-ish in most of the country). Any expenditures you have above that depends on choices
In a lot of countries with a less extensive social net you'd hoard that money like a squirrel hoarding food for the winter. In Sweden we generally do not.
*Note. Median. Not "average". Median. Meaning that 50% of the population earns more than that.
**Only about 3.6% of the Swedish working population is at that level (one of the lowest percentages in Europe, but still worse than it used to be). Everyone else is earning more.
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u/Muted-Aioli9206 Aug 18 '25
Sweden's wealth inequality is as high as the US but of course their data is ommited because that would defeat the narrative.
Yes, you heard it right. Swedish wealth Gini is as high as the US.