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January 6, 2015 Scandinavia’s Extreme Taxes Help, Rather than Hurt, Its Economy Taxes and other forms of income redistribution take such a bite out of wages in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden that an average worker gets to keep just 20% of his or her earnings, compared with 63% in the United States. Nevertheless, these Scandinavian economies are some of the world's strongest, writes Henrik Jacobsen Kleven of the London School of Economics. That's because Scandinavia's laws ensure broad-based tax participation, and public spending is focused on subsidies for services such as child care that promote labor-force participation, Kleven says. SOURCE: How Can Scandinavians Tax So Much?

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