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Occupational Licensing Blunts Competition and Boosts Inequality (economist.com)
Occupational licensing -- the practice of regulating who can do what jobs -- has been on the rise for decades. In 1950 one in 20 employed Americans required a licence to work. By 2017 that had risen to more than one in five. From a report: The trend partly reflects an economic shift towards service industries, in which licences are more common. But it has also been driven by a growing number of professions successfully lobbying state governments to make it harder to enter their industries. Most studies find that licensing requirements raise wages in a profession by around 10%, probably by making it harder for competitors to set up shop.
Lobbyists justify licences by claiming consumers need protection from unqualified providers. In many cases this is obviously a charade. Forty-one states license makeup artists, as if wielding concealer requires government oversight. Thirteen license bartending; in nine, those who wish to pull pints must first pass an exam. Such examples are popular among critics of licensing, because the threat from unlicensed staff in low-skilled jobs seems paltry. Yet they are not representative of the broader harm done by licensing, which affects crowds of more highly educated workers like Ms Varnam. Among those with only a high-school education, 13% are licensed. The figure for those with postgraduate degrees is 45%.
[...] One way of telling that many licences are superfluous is the sheer variance in the law across states. About 1,100 occupations are regulated in at least one state, but fewer than 60 are regulated in all 50, according to a report from 2015 by Barack Obama's White House. Yet a handful of high-earning professions are regulated everywhere. In particular, licences are more common in legal and health-care occupations than in any other.
Lobbyists justify licences by claiming consumers need protection from unqualified providers. In many cases this is obviously a charade. Forty-one states license makeup artists, as if wielding concealer requires government oversight. Thirteen license bartending; in nine, those who wish to pull pints must first pass an exam. Such examples are popular among critics of licensing, because the threat from unlicensed staff in low-skilled jobs seems paltry. Yet they are not representative of the broader harm done by licensing, which affects crowds of more highly educated workers like Ms Varnam. Among those with only a high-school education, 13% are licensed. The figure for those with postgraduate degrees is 45%.
[...] One way of telling that many licences are superfluous is the sheer variance in the law across states. About 1,100 occupations are regulated in at least one state, but fewer than 60 are regulated in all 50, according to a report from 2015 by Barack Obama's White House. Yet a handful of high-earning professions are regulated everywhere. In particular, licences are more common in legal and health-care occupations than in any other.
A prospective: Milton Friedman's thoughts on Licensing .
You want a capitalist free market, but only for other people.
The one who wields a brush applies dangerous chemicals to peoples faces.
There is a theory that most regulations and red tape are unnecessary - we should rely on common sense.
There's another which states that most regulations and red tape are there because common sense is actually quite rare and someone did something stupid.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That engineer has to be able to prove their bridge will work over time for the use it was designed for, in the conditions it was built.
Giving away the word "engineer" to someone with no skills for "equality" reasons will not result in a bridge that works long term.
Nations need to have confidence in the bridges they use.
Need medical care? the doctor, any doctor in any hospital should have passed that nations medical exams and be under constant review and have their results look at.
A medical system needs to have confidence that any on duty doctor can do what they got a job for.
A rescue helicopter to get people to hospital that can fly day and night needs the crew to actually be able to fly in day and night conditions.
A person working on a production like and its electoral system needs to be able to show they have the skills to work on that system.
That "licence" tells the factory owner, the insurance company and all other workers the work done is to a nations standards and was correct and safe.
That any further work can build on existing quality work.
The electrical, water, gas networks have to be designed and installed to some standard so all surrounding homes are safe to some standard for many years.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Or rather, someone did something deliberate which was stupid - such as using a non-human-grade product because it was cheaper than the human-grade one and burned someones scalp off.
That's the main reason things tend to end up licensed - illegal behavior on the part of the unlicensed actor.
What guilds you ask? Way back when, anyone could claim to be a bread maker, or tanner, or brewer. At some point, due to various reasons, those who took pride in their work and felt their standard of excellence should be met by the shyster down the stall banded together and formed guilds.
Those guilds set minimum standards for quality such as no sawdust in bread or beer which wasn't watered down or had spices thrown in to cover up bad tastes or bad alcohol.
Fast forward to today and for somewhat similar reasons, professions want people to meet minimum standards of service. For example, the person who colors your hair should have some basic knowledge of how not to burn your skin or turn your hair into straw when applying the mixed chemicals.
Now I know what many of you are going to say. "I'm a programmer and I've never been involved in a guild or union or anything like them. Employers simply hire me."
Oh really? Those employers never asked what your qualifications were? Never asked how many years experience you had in python or Rust or whatever language they're looking for? They never asked to see examples of your work? Never quizzed you on your knowledge?
What they did is no different than what people being licensed go through. You have to meet some minimum standard set by the employer in the same manner someone has to meet the minimum standard to be a cosmetologist, an attorney or doctor.
To those who say, "Free markets!", what happens when your scalp is burned getting your hair colored? What if the person, somehow, gets the wash in your eyes and causes damage? Your response is most likely to get an attorney to sue them for damages. Question: how do you know that attorney is qualified to handle your case?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
If we allow cosmologists to be unlicensed, the entire universe could collapse into a black hole. There is some evidence that this is already happening. That is far worse than a bad haircut.
You're required to pass a test on how to recognize fake ids, determine if someone has had too much to drink and needs to be shut off, and what your legal responsibilities and liabilities are as a server. The permit cost is $8.99, and includes a video tutorial.
That seems pretty reasonable to me. It's not like they're testing you on whether you can mix a Martini.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Areas where tourism is a big industry obviously are going to want to license tour guides. Bad tour guides can give a destination a bad reputation or lead to tourists getting ripped off or mugged. Much like a hotel wants to maintain a level of service, tourist destinations do as well. Some places also have a healthy respect for their history and want to make sure it is accurately represented.
Carpenters frame houses. I've seen a badly framed house. I've seen a ceiling collapse due to poor carpentry. Why you think being able to build to code shouldn't require a test is beyond me.
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Given the prevalence of autocorrect, it is no longer possible to distinguish a typo from choosing an incorrect but similar word.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
You're confusing two different concepts. Certifications aren't licences. In a field which requires a license you cannot legally work unless you have it. Whereas in IT I do not NEED an MCSE "license" in order to play minesweeper or solitaire; I'm just more likely to be hired by a pointy haired boss if I have the certification.
At some point you are correct. There are certain professions that should require licensing. Generally these are professions that involve some level of personal safety (medical) or fiduciary responsibility (legal.)
At some point your argument falls apart. Not exactly sure why you need to be licensed to:
Decorate a house
Braid hair (NOT cut it)
Walk dogs
Sell caskets
Be a locksmith
Run a pawn broker
Run a flower shop
Operate a food truck (ON TOP of your regular commercial drivers license AND health certificate)
Install home theater equipment
Run a travel agency
Package things for shipping
Upholster furniture
I'm sure you could come up with some corner case that would involve safety in any of these cases, but you could do the same for, pretty much, ANY profession.
So the question becomes is if the licensing scheme is doing more to protect consumers, or to protect established professionals from competition.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
As someone who has been involved in fashion, art, and glamour photography for some time, I find the article's dismissal of cosmetology licensing to be careless and poorly researched.
Applying makeup is a licensed activity because of significant health and safety issues related to hygiene and proper use of certain products (such as latex, for example, as used in the movie and theater industries). You could very literally lose an eye, go into anaphylactic shock, or get a nasty rash because some village idiot decided to play makeup artist and didn't know what they were doing. People doing this really DO need to know what they are doing.
Likewise, bartender licenses are less about memorizing obscure drink recipes and more about properly working within the law around alcoholic drinks and potentially inebriated customers. These licenses are not a burden to obtain (working with a non-profit art gallery, we obtained them for some of our board members so we could legally serve wine at our shows), and they are a serious intervention to help cut down on drunk driving, alcohol poisoning, and underage drinking.
Here in Texas, the licensing agency recently got rid of mandatory licensing of interior designers (my wife is one) and talent/modeling agencies (which, again, I'm familiar with through photography). The result is a total disaster in both fields. To do an effective job, interior designers need to understand building codes, proper construction techniques, when to call in a structural engineer, permitting, blueprints and drawings, special laws around commercial furniture, etc. But without a license, anyone who watches a bunch of HGTV and thinks they are the next Joanna Gaines can go represent themselves as a designer, and homeowners and businesses *don't know what they don't know*. And in the talent agency world, particularly in modeling, there is a HUGE problem of outright scams, not to mention sketchy guys claiming to "manage" models or singers, who act more like wannabe pimps.
So yeah, maybe licensing can be a bit of a protection racket in some industries, but it's way too easy to deride someone else's education from a place of ignorance about the service they are performing and the risks involved in the decisions they make.
(Also, make no mistake, this article isn't about makeup or pints of lager, it's about an ongoing, long-term, well-funded dispute about what the differences should be between a doctor and a nurse practitioner. The arguments about other industries are merely window-dressing.)