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Inflation in Denmark last year at its lowest level since 1953

TheCopenhagenPost
January 11th, 2016


This article is more than 8 years old.

Economist: Low price increases can contribute to fledgling economic recovery

From 2014 to 2015 the average consumer price index rose by just 0.5 percent, making inflation in 2015 the lowest since 1953, according to figures from the national statistics office Danmarks Statistik, reported in Børsen.

Niels Rønholt, the vice president of macroeconomic research at Jyske Bank, puts the exceptionally low figure down to low oil prices keeping prices down generally.

“Energy and processed food excluded, the so-called underlying inflation is at 1.2 percent,” he said.

Good news for the economy and consumers
According to Jacob Graven, the chief economist at Sydbank, the low level of price increases is good news for the Danish economy as well as consumers.

“Even though pay increases are small, most Danes get more money in their hands because prices are increasing even less than salaries. The low price increases can therefore contribute to raising consumption and thereby push the fledgling economic recovery forward,” he said.

The biggest price increases in 2015 were within education, which saw an increase of 3.2 percent, especially due to higher private school fees.


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A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”