Regulating Work: Measuring the Scope and Burden of Occupational Licensure Among Low‐ and Moderate‐Income Occupations in the United States

Abstract

This study examines the scope and burden of occupational licensing laws in the United States for 102 low-and moderate-income occupations. Findings indicate that the licences studied require of aspiring workers, on average, $US209 in fees, one exam, and about nine months of education and training, plus minimum grade and age levels. Data also indicate striking disparities in requirements within and between occupations and within and between states. These inconsistencies likely reflect not the relative public health and safety risks of occupations, but instead the lobbying prowess of practitioners in securing laws to shut out competition.JEL codes: D45, J44, L15, L51, L84.

The Continuing Burden of Occupational Licensing in the United States

“…In a prior issue of this journal, my co‐authors and I reported the results of our analysis of the extent of, and burdens associated with, government‐mandated occupational licences for 102 low‐ to moderate‐income occupations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in the United States (Carpenter et al ). Those results were based on data collection that ended in 2012.…”

Institutional variation in occupational licensing and its consequences for wages. A distributional analysis for the USA and Germany.

“…Scholars of this strand doubt that legislators intend to protect consumers and see the regulation of occupations merely as an act of unnecessary government intervention (Angrist and Guryan 2008;Arias and Scafidi 2009;Kleiner and Krueger 2010). The asserted arbitrariness of licensing within the U.S. labor market across states is taken as evidence for that view (Carpenter et al 2015). Some occupations are regulated in some states but not in others.…”

Male prime-age nonworkers: evidence from the NLSY97

“…For example, in some States, an occupational license is necessary to work as a florist or an interior decorator. These unnecessary licensing requirements create a burden for workers, particularly for those with fewer means (Kleiner 2000;2015;Carpenter et al 2015). State-level reforms of occupational licensing would help make it easier for people who lose one job to move to a new one, possibly in a new location, and a number of States have begun to take action in this area.…”