[irishjuggler]

LOL!! Looks like you just proved my point. Thanks. Got anything else?

Please do everyone a favor and enroll in a remedial reading class. Employee contributions are now included in "wages and salaries." Employer contributions are included in “employer contributions for employee pension and insurance funds." What is so difficult to understand about that?

Look at their data:
http://www.bea.gov/bea/newsrel/pinewsrelease.htm

I know the information presented is probably difficult for you to comprehend, but please stop and do your best to think for a second. If employee contributions are included in "wages and salaries" and employer contributions are included in “employer contributions for employee pension and insurance funds," and NEITHER are subtracted out in taxes or personal outlays, they MUST still be included in personal savings.

[americanbychoice2]

Sorry to have to disagree with you.
Employee contributions are excluded from wages or salaries. They in fact are decreasing your reportable income.
The fiduciary responsibilty and ownwership rests with the employer, a key factor for making sure that the employee's contributions are tax free/ reducing income.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Employee contributions are now included in "wages and salaries."

Well of course they're included in wages and salaries.

What is so difficult to understand about that?

The difficult part was including them in "disposable income". My 401k isn't disposable income (BEA definition: Total after-tax income received by persons; it is the income available to persons for spending or saving). If your source had said "401(k) contributions that are now included in disposable income" or "401(k) contributions that are now included in savings" it would have been more obvious.

So including thinking Pat Buchanan would be a serious presidential candidate in 1996, now I've been wrong twice :^)