“3) Three-quarters of entitlement benefits written into law in the United States go toward the elderly or disabled. That’s according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. And a big chunk of the rest goes to working households. Only about 9 percent of all entitlement benefits go toward non-elderly, non-disabled households without jobs (and much of that involves health care and unemployment insurance)”

“4) The bulk of entitlement program spending goes toward the middle class. By “entitlements,” CBPP is including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, children’s health insurance, food stamps, school lunch programs, welfare, unemployment insurance, the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit. It does not include a few discretionary programs (like rental assistance or low-income energy subsidies) which are aimed more directly at the poor. Those programs, however, are a lot smaller in comparison.”
washingtonpost.com

First of all, SS and Medicare are not entitlements—people pay into those. Secondly, the criteria for middle class is a lot of BS: if you make the “average” household income of around $53K/yr as a couple in this economy and have any kids at all, disaster is just a job loss away. Most Americans are not middle class as I grew up thinking about it—the professional, merchant, and managerial classes, not the schlubs who worked for someone at an hourly wage—those are working class, a designation no one even discusses any more because it sounds too much like labor even if you sit at a desk all day and don’t get your hands dirty.