No minimum salary, but minimal salaries.
@ 1:34 pm Finland has no mandated “minimum salary”. Someone asking that question will get the question back - “what will you be doing?” as the minimum salary in each job is more or less mandated by the comprehensive union agreements that differ a bit if you’re working in the public or private sector and also between industries (A lot of strikes recently have been about a job being outsourced and the new company having a different union agreement, cooks of bank cafeterias and cleaners at the paper factory come to mind). So everyone gets “union wages” in Finland.
But what are the wages then like? Taloussanomat did a survey on the average wages in Finland according to the average salary statistics by job classification and by gender, and compared the lowest rung of the ladder to the higher within the same profession. (The categories are by the Finnish Statistics Centre). Now it is said that the “wage differences in Finland are not that big”. Lets rephrase that, about as like the “cars are the cheapest in Finland” it makes everybody laugh as you need to remember the taxes on top. So the wage differences of the bring-home-pay are not as big in Finland - due to the progressive income taxation.
So who has the suckiest average salary doing a regular 9-5 workday your 38-40 hours a week? (Military not included.) A fraction under the 1600 euro limit would be for women a “farmhand” and for men a “laundry worker”. Thats about the lowest you can get… even a “cleaner” gets in the ballpark of 1700 euros average. But does education help? Do specialists get more salary? Do managers? That again depends on your profession. The lower rung of the specialist ladder is again farm work, a seminologist is in the 1700 euro ballpark. And if you get into mismanagement, the worst salaries are in the hotel- and tourism business.
Now as we’re talking of average salaries the survey also looks into the highest salaries. A stock and currency exchange banker or then your chief surgeon might get into the 5000 -6000 euro category, but thats the top end of the average “rich guys” salary. So what is the salary difference like? According to the nifty tax calculator provided by VERO ( just ballpark figures counted with 13 mo salary ):
1600e/month your income tax% is 16,5, take home pay ~ 1336 euros a month
6000e/month your income tax% is 36,5, take home pay ~ 3827 euros a month
So before taxes the income is 3,75 times, after taxes only 2,8… yay, socialism! BTW the SDP party secretary makes 6900 euros a month… yay socialism!
So the absolute minium wage they could fins is 1600e?
How tragic. I bet all the tomato pickers, gardeners and illegal construction workers are cheering their freedom to get 50cents an hour.
Oh yeah and how is it bad that “rich” people only make about 2.5 times real income than the “poor”? I thought small income differencies were considered a good thing in terms of society.
I understand of course that if taxes were lifted and we could pay the poor 500e and the rich guys 10 000e then finnish purchasing power would look much better in comparison charts, and all you american(ophiles) would wet your pants off the newfound glorious “wealth” of finland.
Comment by philtard — Mon, Jul 14th, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
“Oh yeah and how is it bad that “rich” people only make about 2.5 times real income than the “poor”?”
- Do you really want your doctor earning just slightly more than “laundry worker’? While they both have responsibilities and neither is expected to F up, the doctor has a greater potential of stopping your clock than the laundry worker. Also, he has to go to school much longer to learn his profession than many other types of workers.
This whole issue was just brought out with the nurses strike. The salaries for nurses was not enough of a premium to get students to choose a career in nursing over other less demanding professions.
If all the net pay was equal, who wouldn’t want a simple job like street sweeping or driving a Zamboni?
Comment by Fred Fry — Mon, Jul 14th, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
#1 I think it was the “average” lowest, they didn’t count in professions with less than 30 people in for example, so “government managers, president, female” isn’t there.
And it was “people working fulltime on a monthly salary”, the lowest salaries are the kind like the people dealing advertisements who get something like 2c per item etc. IIRC the lowest monthly salary would be some trainee in… would it then be retail. The salary is also average so that in some professions like a night watchman the base pay is crap, but then you get extras for nighshift, dog, weekends etc.
Comment by Hank W. — Mon, Jul 14th, 2008 @ 6:53 pm
“1600e/month your income tax% is 16,5, take home pay ~ 1336 euros a month”
So why are the lowest paid workers paying any taxes at all? That’s a big inefficiency, since they are generally on the receiving end of transfer payments. So why churn money through the system turhantakia?
And none of this considers the high cost of living in Finland, like the HUGE tax on food?! And nobody can afford to do anything fun except for waking with those stupid ski poles.
Minimum wages in other countries might be lower, but their costs of living are also much lower. Finland is full of senseless inefficiencies that are probably rooted in old egalitarian ideologies of the past. Unfortunately nobody really benefits from it - in virtually all of western Europe, the standard of living is generally higher than in Finland at all income levels.
Comment by Eino — Mon, Jul 14th, 2008 @ 9:20 pm
Eino my friend you are saying out the truth everybody knows but nobody says out aloud.
Comment by Hank W. — Mon, Jul 14th, 2008 @ 9:47 pm
“in virtually all of western Europe, the standard of living is generally higher than in Finland at all income levels.”
“Eino my friend you are saying out the truth everybody knows but nobody says out aloud”.
A lot of people are saying this in Finland, whether it´s true or not is an other story.
I´m french and I can tell you that to live on a small income in Finland is wayyyyyy easyer here than in France. The pay is better, the rent is cheaper than in ANY french city the size of Helsinki( and I don´t even mention Paris), the social protection and benefits works better and the price of things is not more expensive at all.( except alcohol and out of season fresh products )
I lived in London and Manchester for a year altogether and I had to count every penny …
Comment by Julien — Tue, Jul 15th, 2008 @ 5:24 pm
The way I see it is that all the ultraliberal enthusiasts fighting against finnish system argument say ” taxes in Finland are so high that small income workers are actually poorer here than virtually anywhere here is western Europe”
- Usually people saying that have only a vague idea of what is it to live on a small income.
- What they deeply want to say is : ” cut down the taxes, cut down the social benefits then we´ll have a stronger economy and all those lazy people will finally have to either work harder or study harder or disappear , and I ´ll finally much more dough. ” But that´s very politically incorrect .
Comment by Julien — Tue, Jul 15th, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
What we have in Finland - which never gets counted in the “standard of living” is the infrastructure. Even the “ghetto” apartment buildings are luxury as compared where the proles live in say France or UK. We have plumbing inside, central heating and triple windows as a standard. Maybe it is small, but its solid. (theres examples to the contrary too, but no rat-infested tenements)
Comment by Hank W. — Tue, Jul 15th, 2008 @ 6:31 pm
Everywhere in EU by law a house must have the plumbing. Usually some heating systems work in there too, thought heating must be paid. In the south on the coasts quintuple windows nor even heating are much needed throughout the year.
Comment by Save the world.... — Tue, Jul 15th, 2008 @ 7:59 pm
You forgot uncertified teachers,nurses, daycare workers/nursery nurses, who get on average, before taxes, 1300-1600 a month. Funny that cleaners make more than the teachers and nurses in this country. Unqualified can simply mean you don’t have a Finnish University degree in education.
Comment by Elisabet — Tue, Jul 15th, 2008 @ 11:46 pm
2500 applicants for a handful of job openings at VR to become train drivers. WTF? Oh…wait, they can have a starting salary of 3000 eurobucks!
Comment by majava — Wed, Jul 16th, 2008 @ 1:26 am
“Funny that cleaners make more than the teachers and nurses in this country.”
They don´t. I have been a cleaner in this country and many cleaners make 7.5 E /h ( that more or less the new TES agreements) , so check a minimum your data before you actually write anything ! At best , I knew a cleaner that made around 11.5 E/h and that was a special raise for being such a dedicated worker ( night extra included) ,the job is “peruspesu” , I did it a few times and it´s one hell of a job believe me, you got to like scrubing and dirt.
The TES agreements for cleaners are by far the worst you can find in Finland to my knowledge. And heavy duty cleaning job is much harder and complex than what most people think. The ratio of complexity X hardness/pay is simply awful.
Comment by Julien — Wed, Jul 16th, 2008 @ 11:40 am
What we have in Finland - which never gets counted in the “standard of living” is the infrastructure. Even the “ghetto” apartment buildings are luxury as compared where the proles live in say France or UK.
Apartment living in Finland is ok - possibly better than in Paris or London or many other big cities in western Europe. But not everybody lives in big cities. You can get much better and cheaper apartments outside of most city regions. In that respect, the difference between Finland and western Europe is really negligible.
However, there’s a lot more fun stuff to do in western Eruope - and the general cost of living is much cheaper! Usually public transit is far more convenient too, with nighttime hours and such. But you can’t just compare cities; you have to look at the whole picture. In doing so, you see that Finland is really near the bottom of the rankings.
Comment by Anonym — Thu, Jul 17th, 2008 @ 6:33 am
Sorry, I forgot to include reference to the quote. Here it is again…
Hank- What we have in Finland - which never gets counted in the “standard of living” is the infrastructure. Even the “ghetto” apartment buildings are luxury as compared where the proles live in say France or UK.
Apartment living in Finland is ok - possibly better than in Paris or London or many other big cities in western Europe. But not everybody lives in big cities. You can get much better and cheaper apartments outside of most city regions. In that respect, the difference between Finland and western Europe is really negligible.
However, there’s a lot more fun stuff to do in western Eruope - and the general cost of living is much cheaper! Usually public transit is far more convenient too, with nighttime hours and such. But you can’t just compare cities; you have to look at the whole picture. In doing so, you see that Finland is really near the bottom of the rankings.
Comment by Anonym — Thu, Jul 17th, 2008 @ 6:35 am
Only if Finns realized that Finland wasn`t so perfect after all..
Comment by JHJ — Thu, Jul 17th, 2008 @ 2:18 pm
As a Finn who has lived also in CA, USA for ten years I can compare salaries in these two different countries. One must remember that some services (medical care, education, etc.) are seen reasonably cheap and cheaper in Finland than in CA. Besides these services are available for all of us in Finland which is not necessarily true in the USA. We share the load. This includes also those ones who happen to work here just for a short time. You will not be left on streets to die.
The initial article includes some errors. In Finland there are regulations which must be followed unless the minimum wage is not specifically stated in any contract. Then the employee should be getting at least 956.10 € a month, 44.47 € a week or 5.50 € an hour. In Netherlands the corresponding numbers are 1249.20 € a month, and in the USA the minimum salary is $ 8.15 per an hour. Do your currency math for comparing these salaries in the USA and Finland. The rate is approx. $ 1 = 1.50 €.
When said “So who has the suckiest average salary doing a regular 9-5 workday your 38-40 hours a week? (Military not included.” this is not correct. The legal work hours, without paying any extra, is 37.5 hours a week. By the same token, do again your math for finding how much this will make a day. Hank, who did you work for? Please, just report about your employer for exploiting you if you worked 40 hours without any extra compensation, and I can guarantee that justice will be done. Especially in Finland it is very important that the law is for all of us. I don’t even want to go to stories I happened to see in CA, to say nothing of differences between salaries, let’s say, for illegal Mexicans and the most wealthiest Americans. Illegal immigration is a fact and necessity in the USA, but at what price?
Hank, please make sure that you check first facts before writing these articles.
Comment by Finn — Tue, Aug 12th, 2008 @ 9:31 pm
Awesome! This is the sad fact, thanks to bringing it out, at least somewhere…
Comment by jhe — Thu, Aug 28th, 2008 @ 12:29 pm