We believe that this concept is unworkable and morally objectionable. However, society does not find these dependencies offensive. Instead it fixates on those who are employable but are not working and whose character, therefore, would seem to be flawed. That is, the poor are viewed as if it were their choice to be poor and to rely on the state. This view flies in the face of all serious studies of poverty and poor people.
Poor people are just like everybody else.
Shifting the welfare burden off onto families is an old familiar trick which originated in the Elizabethan Poor Law. First, family ties cannot by maintained or strengthened by legislation. Second, to enforce family responsibility is to ignore the fact that most poor people are found in poor families. That is, by giving one's savings, etc. to a family member, the benefactor may be putting him or herself at risk. Apart from these pragmatic points there is a principled objection to family responsibility provisions.