Income Policy #1: Occupational Licensing
Barbers aren't scientists. Let's recognize that.
Original Proposals:
The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate
-Phil Gramm, Robert Ekelund, John Early
Institute for Justice: License to Work, 3rd ed.
-Lisa Knepper, Darwyyn Deyo, Kyle Sweetland, Jason Tiezzi and Alec Mena
Policy Proposal: Repeal/reduce barriers, prevent new licenses, narrow scope of practice, remove mobility barriers, and ease licensure for people with records.
Nobody becomes a barber because they're good at biology. At least that's what mine told me. He wasn't a fan of having to identify cell structures of head-borne bacteria.
He's right. Occupational licenses are doing too much. Nobody wants Sweeney Todd giving them a low-fade, but demanding $295 and 362 days on average¹ from licensed workers is excessive. We’re keeping people out of work and on welfare.
Take Ilumi. Altagracia "Ilumi" Sanchez ran a licensed home day care in Washington, D.C. for over a decade. Then a district-wide mandate required an associate's degree for all new and existing family child care home providers.
llumi has a law degree from the Dominican Republic and speaks English as a second language; going back to school wasn't realistic. Parents fought for her. The Institute for Justice sued on her behalf. In 2022, the D.C. Circuit let the requirement stand anyway — even though D.C. officials had spent years delaying the rule and quietly exempting workers like Ilumi from it, which is a strange way to enforce something you're confident is necessary. D.C. already has the highest child care costs in the country.
Licensing is supposed to protect consumers from inept work. Here, they took away a service parents wanted, put a qualified person out of work, and kept prices high in an already costly market by restricting the supply of work. All for some important reason no one can articulate.
Jobs weren't always this regulated. In the 1950s, about 1 in 20 U.S. workers needed government permission to do their job. Today it's 29%, almost 1 in 3.²
The best research I've seen on licensing is from The Institute for Justice (IJ). Their team was been tracking occupational licensing in the U.S. since 2012. In total, they track 102 low-income jobs and the hoops Americans have to go through to get them. IJ's researchers point out five ways we can create a healthier economy.
1. Repeal and Reduce Licensing Barriers
Her name was Sandy Meadow. As a recent widow, Sandy went back to work as a florist to support herself. That is, until Louisiana's Horticultural Committee got her fired for not having a license to work. Sandy was a hustler, someone to be uplifted, not cut down. She ended up passing away in poverty.
Louisiana is the only state in the county that regulates florists. In this case and other anomalies, regulations should be dropped.
For other resources to help policymakers determine which jobs should be de-regulated, they can go to:
The Compare States feature on License to Work
The Occupational Regulation Database from the Knee Center
National Occupational Licensing Database from the National Conference of State Legislatures
2. Prevent New Licenses
Ask these three questions before adding any new licenses:
(1) Is the harm to public health and safety well documented, significant and widespread, not merely anecdotal, potential or even likely?
(2) What are the probable costs and benefits of the proposed regulations, and do the benefits outweigh the costs?
(3) Where harms exist, what is the least restrictive voluntary or regulatory option available to best address them?
3. Pare Back Broad "Scopes of Practice"
Give a government an inch and they'll take a mile.
African-style hair braiders get swept into cosmetology requirements that have nothing to do with them³. It's called licensing creep. Vague language about one unnamed occupation are used to attack others. We need very specific language about what's required from whom.
4. Remove Barriers to Mobility
Regulations restrict freedom of movement. If you're a barber in Ohio and need to care for your parents in PA, you can't work. Will you move without income?
If you worked in one state, you should be able to work in another. Doesn't matter if your papers don't match. Or just get rid of all requirements. Public reviews suffice.
Hawaii, Nevada, and California are toughest on low-income jobs. They require two-plus years of training on average. Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and Utah are the lowest. Same job, same skills, very different price of opportunity.
5. Ease Licensure — and Reentry — for People With Criminal Records
We're team #Rehabilitation, not recidivism.
Occupational regulations disadvantage people with records. Here's three things we can do to change that:
Disqualify people on convictions directly related to the license, not blanket bans that deny licenses for any conviction or arrest. Remove arbitrary "good moral character" provisions that are difficult to enforce fairly
Give offenders the opportunity to petition a licensing board at any time, including before they invest in required education and training, to see whether their conviction will be disqualifying
Require the government to prove why someone should be rejected from an occupation rather than requiring former offenders to prove why they should not be excluded
Knepper, Lisa. License to Work 3 - Institute for Justice, ij.org/report/license-to-work-3/. Accessed 30 Aug. 2026.
Kleiner, Morris M., and Alan B. Krueger. “The Prevalence and Effects of Occupational Licensing.” NBER, 5 Sept. 2008, www.nber.org/papers/w14308.
Knepper, Lisa. License to Work 3 - Institute for Justice, ij.org/report/license-to-work-3/. Accessed 30 Aug. 2026.
Blair, Peter Q., and Bobby W. Chung. “How Much of Barrier to Entry Is Occupational Licensing?” NBER, 19 Nov. 2018, www.nber.org/papers/w25262.
