At that bottom end of the scale, retired and unemployed Americans rely far more on safety nets: the lowest-earning fifth of the population gets 48% of its yearly income from retirement funds like Social Security, and 9% from public assistanceprograms like food stamps.
In our generous society, the bottom fifth does receive a lot of transfer income from government programs, such as Social Security retirement and disability payments, federal, state and local welfare programs, education assistance, etc.