But you have a functional social safety net

I grew up in poverty, I know what this social safety net looked like 20 years ago. It's been hollowed out by a decade of alt-right governance since. They've pushed the non-white welfare king/queen narrative hard.

Living on subsistence minimum isn't really a comfortable life. You have to constantly apply for it and get scrutinised, and sometimes you get automatically denied because the government has applied a quota that försäkringskassan has to fill; it's luck of the draw.

It's certainly not something I'd ever view as a nice stress-free fallback to recover from, it's a full-time job in and of itself, and that's not counting the critique you have to put up with from society for using the system as it is intended.

insurance and retirement covered with your taxes.

Ish. Current retirees are covered by current taxpayers. My retirement will be covered by future taxpayers. This has lead to the retirement age being bumped up a couple of times the past few years, because there's not enough taxes coming in to cover retirement. I don't expect to ever actually retire.

The average pension income currently is 16400 crowns a month before taxes. My rent is 8.4k and it goes up with several hundred a year. Pensions generally remain fairly static.

By insurance I guess you mean healthcare. This is largely true, we have a high-cost protection, and that includes visits so if you buy enough meds or visit the doctors enough each year, the high cost protection kicks in, it's currently at approximately 3000 crowns.

My a-kassa isn't free, nor is it tax funded. I personally pay for that on a monthly basis. It's also tied to you looking for work.

There are upsides and downsides to everything. Things get bad here, too.