http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/chart-of-the-day-these-are-the-47-percent.php?ref=fpb
Right now about one-third of the 47 percent are people who are too old to work, full time students, disability beneficiaries, long-term unemployed and other such despicable freeloaders. Because the 47 percent figure comes from using "households that file" as the denominator it includes people who have part time jobs and low paying jobs, Social Security and unemployment beneficiaries. The rest were people whose jobs paid little enough that, on net, they owed no income taxes. These people may have benefited from the stimulus' Making-Work-Pay tax credit, or saw their incomes drop enough during the recession to qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, and so on.
In this regard, attacking the 47 percent for gaming the system is an implicit call for taxing Social Security income, taxing disability benefits, further taxing unemployment benefits, and so on.
Moreover, and this is key, the 47 percent is only 47 percent because of the recession. As CBPP wrote in May, the high number "reflects the unique circumstances of 2009, when the recession greatly swelled the number of Americans with low incomes and when temporary tax cuts created by the 2009 Recovery Act -- including the "Making Work Pay" tax credit and an exclusion from tax of the first $2,400 in unemployment benefits -- were in effect. Together, these developments removed millions of Americans from the federal income tax rolls. Both of these temporary tax measures have since expired. In a more typical year, 35 percent to 40 percent of households owe no federal income tax. In 2007, the figure was 37.9 percent."
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