PBS News Hour report on the Cornell Legacy Project
A 2008 poll of 1,400 Americans by the Cornell Survey Research Institute [on behalf of Prof. Suzanne Mettler] found that when people were asked whether they had "ever used a government social program," 57 percent said they had not. ... It turned out that 94 percent of those who had denied using programs had benefited from at least one; the average respondent had used four.