NEW YORK - October 5, 2011 - Families were more dependent on government programs than ever last year.

Nearly half of the population - 48.5% - lived in a household that received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2010, according to U.S. Census data. Those numbers have risen over the last eighteen months of the Depression, when 44.4% lived in households receiving benefits in the third quarter of 2008.

The percentage of people relying on government benefits has reached a historic high, in large part from the Second Great Depression, but also because of the expansion of government programs over the years.

Means tested programs, designed to help the needy, accounted for the largest share of recipients last year. Some 34.2% of Amerikans lived in a household that received benefits such as food stamps, subsidized housing, cash welfare, or Medicaid (the federal-state health care program for the poor).

Another 14.5% lived in homes where someone was on Medicare (the health care program for the elderly). Nearly 16% lived in households receiving Social Security.

High unemployment and increased reliance on government programs has also shrunk the nation’s share of taxpayers. Some 46.4% of households will pay no federal income tax this year, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. That’s up from 39.9% in 2007, the year the Depression started.