So they don't have disposable income, arent saving for retirement, and can't go to eat at restaurants?
I suppose in the US, when making 60k/yr its pretty similar since 10-30k get eaten up my medical expenses.
There's a lot you can do when other expenses aren't eating up your take-home pay. For instance, they mention not having to own a vehicle or drive. Car ownership is a substantial expense in the US[0]. Were it not for Seattle's mostly-passable transit system, my wife and I would be a lot deeper in bills (neither of us drives).
Plus, if everyone around you is earning approximately the same thing, wealth-display-competition just isn't a thing. I know people will scoff at it--"that's what you get for trying to keep up with the Joneses"--but humans are social creatures. We want to be like people who are around us and we want to be around people who are like us. Not having that added stress is freeing. This also makes more room for social and leisure activities that don't involve going out to eat and spending a bunch of money as a result. Thus, society is more geared to providing those activities, instead of a plethora of semi-public spaces that cost money to be in.
0 - Just under $1,000/month, on average: https://www.bts.gov/content/mile-costs-owning-and-operating-...
What? 45k USD / year amounts to 40,000 SEK per month. A Swede would receive 30,000 SEK after tax on that. The tax percentage mentioned often includes employer's fees, something that ISN'T taxed on the employee's salary.
She pays about 11,000 SEK per month for her apartment. Groceries are 2,000 to 5,000 SEK with 5,000 being relatively high. I've managed 3-4k for most of my life. Less than 2k as a student.
So she has maybe 15,000 SEK left after rent and groceries. Add maybe 2-5k on top of that for various services, public transport, insurance, phone, whatever. Still leaves her with 10,000 SEK, which is a decent amount to save or use for entertainment or whatever.
Additionally, we have both allmän pension which is state funded, and often occupational pension, so retirement is in some sense covered.
If you want examples of what you net for various salaries, you can use this to get an estimate (that is very accurate, within a few 100 SEK). https://rakna.net/berakna/lon-efter-skatt/
The fields from top to bottom are Fiscal Year, Monthly Salary in SEK, what kommun you reside in (approximately equivalent to County), and if you're a member of the church of Sweden (which adds a tiny amount on top of the tax).
Beräkna means calculate, and the result pops up with details below that.
Mind you America is THE place to be if you're a rich libertarian asshole but -spoiler alert- most people aren't.
It's the US that's the outlier in the world, and it does so at the cost of others.
For the average 30-something? Not even close…