The average Swedish industrial worker is paid $2,208 a month, and an average white-collar worker earns $3,177.
Income taxes take 30 percent to 35 percent of a worker's pay, and the employer pays another 36 percent of the salary in taxes. Overtime and outside work is taxed at 50 percent, and the general sales tax is 25 percent on everything except food, which was lowered to 18 percent in January.Unemployment has risen to 4 percent, a postwar high, and the government projects 5 percent next year as more state jobs are lost through attrition and lagging recovery.
During the century that began in 1870, productivity rose faster in Sweden than in any other country. By 1970, it had one of the highest per-capita incomes in the world.
By the mid-1980s, however, tax rates of up to 75 percent for overtime and outside work were stifling incentive. Government payrolls accounted for 60 percent of the gross domestic product, compared with an average 40 percent for other countries of western Europe.
The economy stopped growing and productivity fell.