They believed that the old system of welfare handouts encouraged dependence and indolence, which in turn created more poverty. The stipulation that poor relief could only be accessed in one’s native parish was seen as an unnecessary restriction on the free movement of labor. The New Poor Law aimed to distinguish the “deserving” poor—the sick and elderly—from what its authors saw as scroungers, by making welfare support so disagreeable for able-bodied people that they would ask for help only in the most desperate circumstances.
