“You are richer than you think”
“Petter Larsson: People have no track of its place in the inkomstligan”
“This is a kulturartikel which is a part of Aftonbladet’s opinionsjournalistik.”
“Sweden is a country without rich, if we do say so ourselves. Those with high incomes believe that they serve worse than they do compared with others, while the poor imagine that they are richer than they are. All tend to see themselves as in between.”
“It shows a survey of uncharted by economists Mounir Karadja, Johanna Möllerström and David Seim, where they asked 1500 people to estimate where in the inkomsthierarkin they would place themselves. Do you belong to the 20% richest? The 40%? They also posed questions about the political stance, education, etc.”
“86 percent of the respondents understated their position. Hardly any of them actually belong to the 10 or 20 per cent with the highest income think that they do it.”
“I feel like yourself again the kind of misconceptions from friends and acquaintances. They can sit with the salaries of 40 000 to 50 000 in the month, but have a hard time swallowing that they would belong to the more wealthy. High-income earners? I? It must be wrong on your numbers.”
“At the bottom of the pyramid is the opposite. Among the poorest 25 percent, many believe that they are more ”middle class” than they statistically are.”
“Those who took part in a lot of media coverage, and those who were highly educated had better track. But it had only been about the lack of information, should the predictions have gone in all directions. In similar studies from Spain, Germany and Argentina guess people also to the forest, but there are no systematic errors. In Austria, however, recalls the figures on the Swedish.”
“There are no clear answers to why people have so systematically wrong. But when it comes to the poor who believe themselves to be richer than they are, it might be about mental self-defense? As jämlikhetsforskarna Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett writes about in his new book, The single inequality (Carnival 2018), income is the main measure of social status in our type of societies, who profess to individualism and meritocracy. Of course, no one wants to define themselves as poor, if the poor are seen, and see themselves as less capable.”
“the Same logic should mean that also those with higher incomes would overestimate their position. We would get a country of a braggart. Do you want to see a star, check out my pay slips!”
“But maybe kicks the Swedish jämlikhetsideologin in here? By which I mean not just that we believe that we live in a decent, egalitarian country, but also the culture that is created around this, where people in their own eyes, do not want to be society fat kelgrisar? “
“the Scientists are speculating about that the interviewees may wish to ”avoid to seem arrogant”.”
“at the same time, can the underestimation passligt enough to legitimize demands for more money. We middle income earners should still not be pungslagna of the state tax, fastighetskatt and other inventions?”
“I can think of when a couple of social democratic politicians in the Stockholm region in the electoral campaign of the 2010 objected to the fact that the party wanted to increase tax for those earning over 40 000 a month. It was a blow against the broad middle class’s need to win. ”In Stockholm it is a regular level of income”, it was (Aftonbladet 22 may 2010). Quickly emerged, however, that only around 12 per cent of the stockholmers earned so much.”
“Myself, I would put me with my 29 300 so comfortable in the richer half, but has a bit up to the 25%.”
“the Data refers to 2017 years marknadsinkomster before tax for people of working age, 20-64 years. This includes salary, income from business, and such as a-cash and cash sickness benefits, and capital income, but not contributions as income support or child benefit.”
“There are no accepted criteria for what a high income is. You can set the bar sky-high, and focus only on the very richest % of the population, the superelit, which seized over one-half of all capital income and on top of that have earned income at an average of 147, 000 in the month. Or, perhaps, the ten percent richest? “
“But what in that case with all these doctors, lawyers, journalists, engineers, architects, secondary school teachers, academics, it-specialists and managers of all kinds? They have well more rarely, villas in Provence, expensive electric cars, or Warhol on the walls. But they are often located precisely between 36 000 and 50 000 a month and thus have a higher income than 75 percent of the population.”
“Seen from below, they look undeniably like just high-income earners, even if it is light years to the super-rich ägarklassen.”
“They would need a reality check, and begin to see their privileges.”
“It may, in step two of the Karadjas, Möllerströms and Seims study. Then reveal the researchers intervjupersonernas real position in the inkomsthierarkin. The aim is to explore if the new, correct, information affects their political attitudes.”
“You would have been able to imagine that people would be more willing to pay taxes and to vote for redistribution when they found out that they have it better off than they thought. Wow! We have the afford to pay for our underprivileged brothers and sisters!”
“But, instead, decreases the willingness to redistribute by 23 per cent and the support for the Conservatives increases significantly.”
“the Change is due entirely to the fact that from the outset, the bourgeois or sverigedemokratiska sympathy now becomes even more right. “
“Vänsterväljarna is, however, almost completely unaffected by the truth.”
“One explanation is that there is an intellectual iron curtain between the right – and vänstersympatisörer in the perception of what creates economic success. Vänsterväljarna believe that ”luck” plays a major role. What that means is not clear, but one can tip the that they mean such things as the luck to be born of wealthy and educated parents, rather than lottery winnings.”
“They believe clearly that we live in a class society, where the background more than the efforts determines our possibilities.”
“Högerväljare tend, conversely, to see the personal effort that is more vital for the good income. For them created a self-reinforcing spiral. When they hear that they are more ”successful” than they thought, it becomes a confirmation that they have made the effort harder than others and that their success, therefore, is fair. Then reduce their support for redistribution policies. The poor are just lazy and should pull themselves together.”
“Maybe the haunting myth of the equality of the country here also? It is believed that Sweden has managed to eliminate all significant inequalities, and that people therefore do not have dramatically different chances depending on class, gender, or skin color, is the conclusion easy to the own the wager determines.”
“the Bourgeoisie has everything to win on to tell people that they are richer than they thought. Then solidariserar the way up.”
“But the most important, albeit banal, insight is, of course, that the decisive battles are ideological, they are about narrative and social change.”
“Established the image of a meritocracy, where the talented and the industrious the righteous are rewarded, the people will drag to the right.”
“the predominant image of a class society, where the low-paid toil at least as much as they paid, the people will drag to the left – even if they find out that they have it better than they thought.”
“Footnote: the Report is Richer (and holier) than thou? – the effect of relative income improvements on demand for redistribution by Mounir Karadja, Johanna Möllerström and David Seim published in The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol 99, No 2, 2017.”
