The 35.4 percent: 109,631,000 on welfare in the U.S. in 2012

109,631,000 Americans lived in households that received benefits from one or more federally funded "means-tested programs" - also known as welfare - as of the fourth quarter of 2012, according to data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau. The Census Bureau has not yet reported how many were on welfare in 2013 or the first two quarters of 2014. But the 109,631,000 living in households taking federal welfare benefits as of the end of 2012, according to the Census Bureau, equaled 35.4 percent of all 309,467,000 people living in the United States at that time. When those receiving benefits from non-means-tested federal programs - such as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment and veterans benefits - were added to those taking welfare benefits, it turned out that 153,323,000 people were getting federal benefits of some type at the end of 2012. Subtract the 3,297,000 who were receiving veterans' benefits from the total, and that leaves 150,026,000 people receiving non-veterans' benefits.