Actually the article is talking about income. The current HN title is wrong. According to the linked article:

"Close to $2 of every $10 that went into Americans’ wallets last year were payments like jobless benefits, food stamps, Social Security and disability, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics."

I do wonder what the figure would be for actual assets. Surely much lower than 20%, but I guess that would be hard to even calculate.