I looked at my paycheck (US) vs. one of our Danish colleagues when I was doing our payroll, and yes, the tax was about 45%, my federal withholding is much less but once you add in the deductions for 401k (unsecured pension scheme) and health insurance (that doesn’t cover anything except annual wellness until we pay in 8,000 USD) and social security (the fed pension being paid now to old people, and their healthcare) my deductions also leave about 55% of my pay for net pay.

The part I object to most in terms of cost there is the healthcare - my deductions may mirror the Danes but I don’t think they also have to cover the first 8k of cost out of pocket.