News and Commentary
What do Andrew Yang, Ivanka Trump, and Obama’s economists all have in common? Other than a passion for mathematics, they all oppose excessive occupational licensing. An article in Reason explores the growing bipartisan consensus for licensure reform amongst policy commentators, even though many elected officials of both parties are still behind the ball.
Lousiana still leads the country in ridiculous licensing requirements. Currently, hundreds of hours of training are needed to before perform that great threat to public health: hair braiding.
A piece in The American Conservative lays out licensing boards complicity in rising medical costs. Constricting supply is good for a doctor’s take-home pay but bad for rural communities or anyone paying medical bills. Since medicine will always require consumer safety regulations, here are three reforms to consider: 1) The Connecticut path expands scope of practice for nurse practitioners. 2) The FCC plan experiments with telemedicine for low-income and rural patients. 3) The North Carolina route offers public funding for dental hygienists to provide basic preventive medicine on their own.
The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards may modernize licensure requirements, now that automatization is supplanting many skills architects formerly needed.
Legislative Reforms: Pennsylvania has picked up where Arizona left off by recognizing all out of state licenses with HB 1172. Texas now has a bill protecting a children’s God-given rights to operate lemonade stands. Lastly, we have long argued licensing regimes restrict the supply practitioners, and Wyoming seemingly agrees. A proposed bill tries to reduce overfishing by mandating fishing guides to get licenses. If you want to hamper an industry, licensing could be a pretty effective strategy.
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