Will NH Democrats Follow Obama's Lead on Occupational Licensing? - Granite Grok

Will NH Democrats Follow Obama’s Lead on Occupational Licensing?

Image Credit: Kauffman.org
Image Credit: Kauffman.org

There is an overlooked paragraph in president Obama’s 2016 budget fact sheet that might actually prove useful to real people trying to find work in the real world.

Reducing Unnecessary Occupational Licensing. The Budget seeks to reduce occupational licensing barriers that keep people from doing the jobs they have the skills to do by putting in place unnecessary training and high fees.

The Budget proposes a $15 million increase for grants to states and partnerships of states for the purpose of identifying, exploring, and addressing areas where occupational licensing requirements create an unnecessary barrier to labor market entry or labor mobility and where interstate portability of licenses can support economic growth and improve economic opportunity, particularly for dislocated workers, transitioning service

The problem with handouts is that plenty of states will take the federal plunder from the Democrat in chief and then fund a commission comprised of key players in the licensing game.  Local industry leaders, directors of business or job associations, and the department heads whose budgets would take a hit from any reform will suck up most oxygen and grant money talking about “the problem.”  Time will pass and a report will be issued that is either inconclusive or suggests that they need more money to continue discussions over an as yet to be determined number of additional tax payer funded lunches.

Commission, panels, and task forces are little more than resume building Potemkin villages to impress people who fancy such publicity building devices.  Their job is to delay action until they can find a way to prevent it.  But that should not stop Democrats in states like New Hampshire from taking Obama’s budget blurb as a sign from their party leadership that it is officially okay to poke an air-hole or two in the rhetorical plastic bag duct-taped around the necks of workers being suffocated by licensing cartels.

(Kauffman.org) While licensing was originally designed to protect consumers from incompetent or unsafe service providers by affixing a sort of quality guarantee from the government, now industries are actively supporting the regulation of their professions to reduce competition and command higher wages.

If the president “seeks to reduce occupational licensing barriers that keep people from doing the jobs they have the skills to do…” and hints at the likelihood that licensing cartels are bad for job growth, then Democrats should get on board.  It might not be the kind of narrative that gets your activists to “donate $3 today” after reading another email with the word ‘URGENT!’ in the subject line but it might do something Democrats insist they care about.   It could create more jobs, more choices, and more economic growth.

New Hampshire is not the worst place for this strain of abuse but there is plenty of room for improvement.  And the cartels are significant pressure players every-time someone suggests reform.  Money from DC is not going to change that.  But a call for reform from the pressure-politics commander in chief should serve as a sign to Democrats that they are free to at least hint at the negative impacts and then work to undo some of the damage.  If enough of them were to get on board it might open up opportunities for a new generation of entrepreneurs looking to convert traditionally low-wage skills into a wealth creating business and job growth.

 Jarrett Skorup at Watchdog Opinion points us to a 2012 study on occupational licensing that should help this relationship along.

“Brookings and Pew recognize that occupational licensing offers no [overall] benefits,” said Lee McGrath of the Institute for Justice, which authored its own study “License to Work” in 2012. “It adds no incremental value over the market at weeding out incompetence and fraud. Employers and consumers are better at demanding relevant training and skills than state legislators and captured licensing boards.”

Now that you’ve got Brookings and Obama suggesting some change we could all believe in will progressives take the hint or continue to use government to protect the licensing cartels?

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