New analysis from CNS News finds that the majority of Americans under 18 live in households that take “means-tested assistance” from the US government.

The study, based on the most recently available data from the Census Bureau, leads with the question: Will they be called The Welfare Generation?

The data presented by CNS editor Terrence Jeffrey shockingly reveals that in 2016 “there were approximately 73,586,000 people under 18 in the United States, and 38,365,000 of them — or 52.1 percent — resided in households in which one or more persons received benefits from a means-tested government program.”

It’s a slim majority, but a majority which nonetheless presents an extremely worrisome trend regarding the number of young Americans and possibly young families who’ve experienced some level of government dependency.

To put it in another, perhaps more alarming way, if you’re under 18 the data shows you are more likely that not to be living in a home that receives some form of taxpayer-financed largesse.

In terms of the country’s total population of 319.9 million Americans, the data finds that 114.8 million, or about 36 percent, lived as part of a household in which someone collected welfare.

[snip]

And out of an estimated 192.8 million Americans living in married-couple families, some 56.7 million of these, or 29.4 percent, received welfare.

And the figure was 78 percent where the mother was head of the house, with the father out of the picture. For kids under age six raised only by mom, a stunning 82% were in a home that received assistance.

Jeffrey concluded his study of the alarming trend of young Americans on welfare and the potential causes, “America’s prosperity is ultimately and inextricably tied to America’s culture. If we want to see the former flourish, the latter must also.”