The findings raise serious doubts about the conflict perspective’s contention that nonlegal institutions function to control subordinate groups in society. Specifically, the analysis failed to find a significant relationship between monthly welfare caseloads and labor force size. The findings represent a first step toward falsifying Piven and Cloward’s theoretical ideas regarding the relationship between the desire to manipulate work norms among disadvantaged populations and the restriction of eligibility criteria for the receipt of benefits. The findings suggest that recent welfare reforms implemented in 1996 were not an attempt to manipulate the labor supply to ensure that employers had a vast supply of low-wage workers. Future research should investigate whether the null findings discovered here regarding the impact of extralegal institutions on subordinate groups may be era-specific. The analysis focused on Wisconsin’s transition from Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) Program to the much more restrictive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant program in 1996 and its impact on the labor force. Monthly data on the labor force size was gathered for the period 1985 through 2004 and monthly welfare caseload data in Wisconsin was gathered for the period 1991 through 2004. Data were analyzed using an interrupted time series autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) analyses of monthly welfare caseloads and labor force size in Wisconsin during the study period. Figures, tables, notes, and references