Denmark: The costs of the welfare state
Denmark, which has so far avoided major budgetary crises, offers one of the clearest models of the universal welfare state. In almost all European countries, a range of welfare services is available to the public, but often they are based either on contributions to insurance schemes or linked to the individual's position in the labor market. The universal model, by contrast, provides assistance which is available to all households and financed by general contributions from the public at large. As a result, Danish public spending has reached almost 70% of GDP with a correspondingly high tax-burden. The 2 basic ideas underlying the development of the welfare state in OECD countries were that it was the responsibility of government to alleviate genuine poverty by guaranteeing all residents a minimum living, and that risk of temporary or permanent loss of income should be shared collectively through either the tax sy