Not quite. Sweden is expensive as it has a whopping 25% VAT (sales tax) already added into the price of goods. 12% for food. They also have property tax. Albeit it is very low. Rent can be high. WTF is fees for services that used to be free? 🤷♀️ Higher education is free. (Which Biden wanted to do...
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Requesting public & personal records from the county was free, now there are fees. Small businesses have to pay fees that didn’t exist 10 years ago & increase every year. Every bond issue adds to property taxes. Lots of places have VAT, but food is still less expensive than in US.
NYC has always had record snd business fees. Do you live in a small town? Eating out in Sweden seemed expensive. Shopping was expensive. That was my experience. Also, Sweden has 10M people, we have 360M. Sometimes systems for a small population do not translate well to a much larger population.
I’ve been fees, yes. But not as many or as high as there are now. Those of us who do genealogical research are in the thick of it. www.newyorkfamilyhistory.org/access-alert
Most people request these records as legal proof of birth or death so they don't pay professional use fees.
...here with community colleges) Healthcare is cheap but not 100% free. There are minimal fees - co-pays, hospital stays, specialists fees, etc. You pay for prescription drugs but there is a $250 yearly cap. Swedish government sets drug prices (which we can/should do here). Plus 50% income tax.