The Heritage researchers found that in 1962, 21.7 million persons depended on the programs they included in their index for benefits.
By 2009, the corresponding number of dependents had grown to 64.3 million.
Adding dependents not included in the Heritage study might easily increase the number to more than 100 million, or to more than a third of the entire population.
Thus, the parasites verge ever closer to outnumbering their hosts.
