How almost half of U.S. population lives in a household that receives state benefits

46.4% of households pay no federal income tax

34.2% of the population receive food stamps subsidised housing and Medicaid

Obama touted $447billion jobs bill on Thursday that would extend jobless benefits



Almost half of the U.S. population now lives in a household where at least one member receives government benefits, new Census data has revealed.

Analysis during the first quarter of 2010 found that a worrying 48.5 per cent of people lived in households that were dependent on state handouts.



The figure is considerably higher than in the third quarter of 2008, at the height of the recession, when it stood at 44.4 per cent.

President Barack Obama seen here at his White House press conference on Thursday morning, again urged Congress to pass his jobs bill, which would extend benefits

The rise has been blamed on high unemployment, poor recovery from the recession, and an increase in the number of government programmes.

Rise of the benefits: Nearly half of Americans receive some form of support - a record high

Part of Obama's jobs plan, which he again pushed on Thursday in an hour-long press conference, would further extend jobless benefits.

Obama said Congress needs to pass his $447billion bill quickly to 'guard against another downturn' in the economy.



' There is no doubt the economy is weaker now than it was at the beginning of the year,' Obama said as he called his plan an 'insurance policy against a double-dip recession.'



Meanwhile laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are believed to be flooding Social Security's disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency.

The Census found that 14.5 per cent of people in the U.S. shared a home with a person on Medicare, and 16 per cent lived with someone on Social Security.

But it was means-tested programmes that accounted for the most highly utilised, with 34.2 per cent of the population receiving support from food stamps, subsidised housing and healthcare support from Medicaid.

A graph from the Census Bureau shows the recent, explosive growth of people living on government benefits

Compare that with 15.1 per cent of Americans who were below the federal poverty line - $22,000 a year for a family of four.

Applications for means-tested programs are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can't find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs.

Meanwhile, 71 per cent of people say the biggest problem with the welfare system is that too many people receive benefits, according to a poll released in August.

The stampede for benefits is adding to a growing backlog of applicants many wait two years or more before their cases are resolved.

But a trend that will further worry the government, is that as the number of people receiving benefits is rising, so is the number of people exempt from paying tax.

Family affair: 46.4 per cent of American households will pay no federal income support this year

And almost half of all households - 46.4 per cent - will pay no federal income tax this year, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

In 2007, the year the recession began, that figure was 39.9 per cent.

GOP presidential candidates have used this detail to canvass that too many Americans are not paying their fair share.

Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann made the point in July, while former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Texas Governor Rick Perry have called for the number of people paying income tax to be higher as well.

Reflection of the times? William H. Macy stars with Allison Janney and Emmy Rossum on the U.S. version of the British show Shameless. Macy plays an alcoholic family patriarch living on disability benefits

Most of the people not paying income tax will be affected by payroll tax, though.



Just 18.1 per cent of households, p redominantly the nation’s elderly and poorest families, pay neither payroll nor federal income taxes.

Earlier this year President Obama had considered changes to social security and Medicare in an attempt to raise the debt ceiling.

Those ideas were tabled.









