Only if you consider the pure $ value. US colleagues that have come to Australia, have gotten sick and um-ed and ah-ed about visiting the doctor because they are so used to the high costs.

If I even notice something weird that freaks me out I go to the doctor. Mental health care, physiotherapy, certain tests and imaging. You get a yearly allocation to use up. GP visits are all "free". I never have to worry about it and I don't want the less fortunate to worry about it either. I would never want to live in the US. I cannot imagine how much extra stress and anxiety I would have without that layer of support.

Compared to what? In California I was paying a full 35% effective tax rate on top of something like 3000 a year in health insurance/deductibles and still had a sizable homeless camp on my street. Plus if I wanted to go back to school for an advanced degree the cost was a joke.

In the US you can definitely bring home more dollars in absolute terms, but I've found if you actually compare total life costs and standards of living you end up at fairly similar % between SV and Europe.

And you need to factor in that Danish people do not need to pay for health services.

$50k after tax in Denmark needs to pay for fewer expenses than $50k after tax in USA.

So it is not a valid comparison to just compare income tax and VAT.

In this case Denmark ends up not being more expensive for a nice middle class life. It's just that ill-informed people thinks otherwise. Quality of life in Denmark is higher: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/quality-...

I left denmark many moons ago for the same reason. Tipping point was when i wanted to buy a car. When i was the amount in tax i basically packed and left. Somehow people think that denmark is expensive because somehow products are better quality, but they arent really. It’s just high taxes. At hospitals you have to wait in long queues for anything serious and universities are meh. Paid for my public uk degree a very tiny amount and was rather happy with it.

That's not how our tax system works. There are different intervals, so at some point you need to pay a higher percentage, but only of the amount above that point.

This year it's 552.500DKK, anything you make ABOVE that, is taxed an additional 15%. So a raise will never leave you with less money. The amount is also adjusted yearly, so next year it normally higher, meaning that you are effectively taxed less.

It is true that if you're only getting 35 - 40% of that raise, because the rest is just taxes, it might be of greater value to you to get more vacation time. Benefits are a little tricky, because they are taxed as well. I believe you could do extra pension, because that's taxed when it's paid out.