August 29, 2006 8:15AM 

# How Well Does the Swedish Welfare State Serve Its Poor? 

By [Andrew J. Coulson](https://www.cato.org/people/andrew-coulson) 

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The American Left romanticizes the benefits of Scandinavian welfare states — to the point that one is sometimes reminded of [Minnie the Moocher](http://www.heptune.com/minnieth.html)’s dream about the King of Sweden (“he gave her things that she was needin’…”).

Tim Worstall dispels that dream in [today’s TCS Daily](http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=082806E), pointing out that:

> In the USA the poor get 39% of the US median income and in Finland (and Sweden) the poor get 38% of the US median income.… Which is really a rather revealing number don’t you think? All those punitive tax rates, all that redistribution, that blessed egalitarianism, the flatter distribution of income, leads to a change in the living standards of the poor of precisely … nothing.

##### Related Tags 

[General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Trade Policy](https://www.cato.org/trade-policy), [Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies](https://www.cato.org/herbert-stiefel-center-trade-policy-studies) 

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