Why have liberals supported welfare to a point where people have become dependent on them?

I was listening to black conservatives saying it is borderline slavery. Now that is not what im saying but i living in the bronx my whole life i have seen this. Many people on my block live off welfare, when the economy was booming nobody was seeking employment, some of them even have the why work and pay tax attitude. It hurts to watch a community never get better, one time they had the welfare to workfare program put in by Rudy gulianni, not everybody but i did see some actually get city jobs that way. will this ever change? Why would we go in a direction of welfare, instead of letting jobs be created and educate people about getting them