- It has become 10,000 kroner more expensive a month for an ordinary family with children, says Nooshi Dadgostar (V).
A few minutes later:
- An ordinary family with two children has received SEK 5,000 more in their wallet every month under this government, says Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (M).
In the party leader debates, two seemingly incompatible images of how things have gone for the "ordinary family with children" emerge.
The question is how two politicians can arrive at such different conclusions about the same household.
But the statements do not have to contradict each other. The politicians are not necessarily talking about the same thing. The government side likes to count on the income side. During the term of office, the tax on work has been reduced, which has left many households with more of their salary after tax. The opposition instead directs the spotlight on the expenditure side: Food, housing and other parts of everyday life have become significantly more expensive.
To understand what has actually happened to the Swedes' economy, you need to keep track of both sides of the household calculation.
And then it is not possible to get around the term's major economic test: inflation.
When Ulf Kristersson's government took office in October 2022, Sweden found itself in the midst of the strongest price rise in several decades. Inflation had risen rapidly and would continue somewhat further up before turning down.
The timing is important. It could be tempting, especially for the government side, to read a graph of the term as a political balance sheet: high inflation when the government took office, low inflation a few years later. But such a conclusion would be misleading.
The inflationary shock was not a unique Swedish phenomenon. After the pandemic, prices rose sharply in large parts of the world. Disruptions in global supply chains, rapidly rising energy, commodity and food prices associated with Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine contributed to the development, as did pent-up demand following the pandemic.
This is clearly visible if Sweden is compared with the EU as a whole. The curves broadly follow the same pattern: inflation spikes in 2021-2022 and then falls back.
This does not mean that Swedish economic policy has no significance for inflation. Interest rates, taxes, subsidies and other decisions can both dampen and amplify price increases. But the great wave of inflation can hardly be attributed to a single Swedish government – neither the rise nor the decline.
There is also an important educational point here that is sometimes lost in the debate: that inflation has fallen does not mean that prices have fallen, but that they are rising at a slower rate.
It is therefore quite possible that inflation is low at the same time that households still feel that everyday life has become much more expensive. The price increases from the years of inflation remain to a large extent.
But the price rise has not been evenly distributed. Some parts of household consumption have become significantly more expensive than others:
In particular, food prices and housing costs (which include, for example, electricity, rent, water and other housing-related services) rose sharply during the years of inflation. It plays a big role in the household's finances because expenses for food and accommodation are difficult to reduce. For a household with small margins, the effect is also greater than for a household with high incomes, since necessary expenses take up a larger part of the budget.
Sometimes it can appear that food prices have increased unusually much in Sweden. That is not true, the development is very similar to that in the rest of the EU. However, prices fell sharply in April 2026 in connection with the temporary food VAT reduction from 12 to 6 percent (prices are always measured including VAT).
There is thus no doubt that household costs rose sharply in 2022 and 2023.
But price increases are only half the picture.
For household finances, what has happened to income matters at least as much.
One way to weigh the two developments against each other is to look at the change in real wages: the wage increase adjusted for inflation.
It shows how the purchasing power of wages before tax has developed. If the salary rises by 3 percent at the same time as prices rise by 3 percent, the purchasing power of the salary (before tax) is stagnant, even though the salary statement shows a higher amount. In such a calculation example, real wage growth would be 0 percent.
Since the mid-1990s, Sweden has had a long period of rising real wages. Year after year, wage increases have been greater than price increases. This is largely what lies behind the fact that Swedish households have had a rising standard of living.
The inflation shock broke that trend. When prices soared in 2021 and 2022, wages did not follow and real wages fell sharply. In a short time, several years of previous real wage increases were erased.
However, the real wage has recovered. Real wages are higher today than when the Kristersson government took office in October 2022. This means that wages have since increased more than prices. However, the real wage level is still lower than in 2021 before the inflation shock.
But neither does the real wage give the whole picture of what has happened to the household economy. It describes how wages before tax and transfers have developed in relation to prices. How much money actually ends up in the wallet is also affected by, among other things, how taxes and subsidies have changed.
Lowering taxes on labor is not a new policy. Since the beginning of the 21st century, governments of all political colors have been moving in that direction. The Tidö parties have continued on the beaten path. Between 2022 and 2026, everyone with a monthly salary of around SEK 17,600 and above has had their average tax rate reduced by at least one percentage point. For incomes from approximately SEK 28,200 and above, this is a reduction of between 2 and 2.6 percentage points.
The tax cuts mean that households' real wages after tax have grown more than real wages before tax.
To complete the picture, DN has also carried out simulations for seven example households and compared their finances - year by year - since 2019. We chose this starting year because it was the last year before the pandemic and the economic disruptions that followed.
The calculation functions as a kind of income statement for the household: on one side there are salaries, pensions, contributions and taxes, on the other costs for accommodation, food and other necessary expenses, among other things. What remains shows how the household's financial space for other expenses has changed.
The calculations show a clear common pattern. For most households, the financial space shrank sharply in the inflationary years of 2022 and 2023, only to recover thereafter. But the recovery looks different. In 2026, several of the sample households have a larger financial space than in 2019, while the single-child family still has a smaller space.
If you instead compare 2026 with 2022, the year in which the current mandate period began, all sample households have greater financial scope in fixed prices except for one single unemployed person.
But 2022 is also a special starting year. Inflation was very high and electricity prices exceptional, while the electricity subsidy for the high prices was only paid out the following year.
It illustrates how crucial the choice of starting point can be. By choosing a comparison year that supports your own conclusion, it is possible to make the same economic development appear more or less advantageous.
So have the Swedes become richer or poorer during the mandate period?
The answer depends on what you measure.
Everyday life has become significantly more expensive, largely for reasons beyond the control of fiscal policy. But at the same time, wages have risen more in percentage terms and the tax on labor has also been reduced. Real wages, both before and after tax, are thus higher today than when the Kristersson government took office in October 2022.
The same picture can be seen in DN's typical household. All seven, apart from the unemployed one-person household, have a larger financial space in 2026, when price increases are taken into account, than in 2022.
But that does not mean that all Swedes have become richer. The development depends on which household you belong to, which income and expenses you have - and not least which year you choose to compare with. 2022 was an unusually weak year for household finances. If you compare it with the time before the inflation shock, the picture becomes much less clear.
Read more Facts on the matter:
How much money has gone to independent school owners instead of to students?
Do today's pensioners have worse finances than previous generations?
Is it true that immigrants carry welfare?
Has the situation in vulnerable residential areas gotten worse or better?
How is the environment - beyond the climate?
Are the police solving more and more crimes?
Are the care apps draining the rest of care of money?
Has Sweden become a worse sporting nation?
Which immigrants integrate the fastest?
