A lot of those that are counted as on welfare are working poor who get housing assistance, food stamps, etc- They are not all totally non working.figures I just looked up shows 3/4 of those welfare payments, (which includes social security, food stamps housing assistence) goes to the dialed and elderly, and 9% goes to non disabled non elderly people.
But the scarcity of actual producers in this economy is a huge factor- And, it seems the people that have managed to interject themselves into the market and skim off some of the cream are compensated much better than the plumber or policeman or car builder. The health insurance companies are one of my pet peeves- They started out as a way of spreading risk, which benefited everyone, or at least we thought it did. Now, the health insurance industry skims billions out of the health care budget, and pays it's executives lavishly.
The finance industry (credit cards, etc) now consumes 15% of the GDP, has record profits, and typical credit card rates are above what used to be banned as usury.
A couple things.
First Finance does not "consume" 15% of GDP, it PRODUCES 15% of our GDP. Historically, financials are the single largest component of the S&P 500, (it's currently information technology), and make up a lot more then just credit cards. They include the large home lenders like Wells Fargo, Investment banking and brokerage, and Insurance. Every significant business in America operates with a line of credit. Without access to capital, business quickly collapse and GDP along with them.
As for health insurance companies, they DO diversify risk. Years ago it was suggested that hospitals could act as their own insurance companies, cutting out the middle man. This did not go will. It didn't take long to discover that hospital administrators did not have the proper skill sets to administer plans, and hospitals also lacked geographical diversification. In addition, hospitals could fall victim to local demographics. As a result this idea resulted it the bankruptcy of many hospitals. As for "excessive" profits in the health insurance industry, that's just a red herring. Compared to other S&P sectors, they actually have repetitively narrow profit margins. As for their "skimming", in many ways, just the opposite is true. They were the only one's with market power to keep hospital rates in check. Now through there new unholy alliance with government, the entire system is in doubt.
As for the 52 million figure, it's like you said. If someone collects a benefit for one month, they are counted. I'd be interested to see what those figures look like with adjusted for only part year participants.