America: More Like Sweden Than You Thought

TCS Daily:

"In the USA the poor get 39% of the US median income and in Finland (and Sweden) the poor get 38% of the US median income. It's not worth quibbling over 1% so let's take it as read that the poor in America have exactly the same standard of living as the poor in Finland (and Sweden). Which is really a rather revealing number don't you think? All those punitive tax rates, all that redistribution, that blessed egalitarianism, the flatter distribution of income, leads to a change in the living standards of the poor of precisely ... nothing."

Interesting income data that proves, in my view, how ineffective modern nanny states are at improving the lot of the poor (at least relative to free-market capitalism). Via Instapundit.