A large fraction of the 47% are the elderly. The evil rank dishonesty of the people who started this meme (not the useful ignorant who spread it) is highlighted by the fact that the elderly are their electoral base. Rich men are encouraging senior citizens watching Fox to think that "they" are freeloaders ... and using those same senior citizens to inflate the number of supposed freeloaders. That's on TOP of not including payroll, sales, and other taxes with regressive distributions when they calculate tax burden.