2011 Census: 49.2% of Americans receive government benefits

[ogarbitrage]

Census: 49% of Americans Get Gov’t Benefits; 82M in Households on Medicaid

In the fourth quarter of 2011, 49.2 percent of Americans received benefits from one or more government programs, according to data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau.

...

Also among the 151,014,000 who received benefits from one or more government programs during that period: 49,901,000 who collected Social Security; 49,073,000 who got food stamps; 46,440,000 on Medicare; 23,228,000 in the Women, Infants and Children program, 20,223,000 getting Supplemental Security Income;13,433,000 who lived in public or subsidized rental housing; 5,098,000 who got unemployment; 3,178,000 who got veterans' benefits; and 364,000 who got railroad retirement benefits.

 

[CaptainObvious]

Quote from ogarbitrage:

Census: 49% of Americans Get Gov’t Benefits; 82M in Households on Medicaid

Well, I think the number is considerably lower given the fact that something people pay for themselves is not really a benefit. Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment, RR retirement, VA, all paid for, or at least earned in the case of the VA, by the people themselves. You wannna' talk public aid, food stamps, housing, welfare, those are government provided benefits taken from taxpayer dollars, and should be heavily regulated.
This is how the republicans lose the argument about what is and isn't government aid. When they mix welfare, food stamps, public aid and then social security, medicare, VA, unemployment into the same lump, they lose people like me. One group is certainly aid, the other is earned and paid for.