NYTimes Uses News Story to Express Dislike of Danish Welfare State

[ErikJ]

NYT Uses News Story to Express Dislike of Danish Welfare State


Sunday, 21 April 2013 CEPR

The NYT appears to be following the pattern of journalism practiced by the Washington Post in openly editorializing in its news section. Today the news section features a diatribe against the Danish welfare state that is headlined, "Danes Rethink a Welfare State Ample to a Fault." There's not much ambiguity in that one. The piece then proceeds to present a state of statistics that are grossly misleading and excluding other data points that are highly relevant.

The first paragraphs describe the generosity of the welfare state, then we get this ominous warning in the 5th paragraph:

"But Denmark’s long-term outlook is troubling. The population is aging, and in many regions of the country people without jobs now outnumber those with them."

Oooooh, scary! Yeah people are living longer in Denmark, that's something that's been happening for a couple of hundred years or so. Like every other wealthy country, people live longer in Denmark than in the United States. While they are projected to continue to see gains in life expectancy and further aging of the population, the increase is actually going to much slower than in the United States.

From 2012 to 2025 the percentage of the Danish population over age 65 is projected to rise from 17.8% to 21.2%, an increase of 3.4 percentage points. By comparison, in the United States the share of the population over age 65 is projected to rise from 13.6% to 18.1%, an increase of 4.5 percentage points over the same period, from a considerably smaller base. The impact of aging on the economy and the government budget will clearly be much larger in the U.S. than Denmark, especially since the government first starts paying for health care for people after they turn age 65 in the United States. (Like every other wealthy country, Denmark has national health insurance.)

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http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/nyt-uses-news-story-to-express-dislike-of-danish-welfare-state

[unrepentant progress]

1. Oh horrors!

A single mom with two kids is getting a whopping $32,000 a year off the dole... Quick, call Captain Austerian! She and her kids must be starved into realizing the error of their ways. Oh, and somebody find a work camp for those kids.

[Dawson Leery]

2. All part of the propaganda campaign against the masses.

Universal healthcare is good.
Daycare for Mother's who work is good.

[bemildred]

3. Yes, the usual whiney projection where economics is involved.

And the usual lack of any historical evidence to support their fatuous arguement that Hobbesian disfunction is somehow better than common effort for the common good.

[cprise]

4. NYT is a corporation like any other, nowadays

Their staff's mode of compensation makes them biased toward Wall St. interests.