Did you know that in West Virginia it takes longer to receive an occupational license to work as a massage therapist than an emergency medical technician?
More than a mere inconvenience, occupational license requirements close the door of employment and opportunity. They can be so expensive and time-consuming that many people who would like to get in a particular occupation can’t afford it.
This makes things difficult for all West Virginians, including the laid-off coal miner or the veteran returning from overseas looking to start a new career. To increase opportunity, we should undo as many of these unneeded, job-killing regulations as possible.
Luckily, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel to do so. Plenty of other states have taken on this task with great success, including one that you might not think of as a role model — Mississippi, which recently showed the rest of the country how to tame the rise of occupational licensing laws.
Originally justified by claims of protecting public safety, today about one in four jobs in the United States requires an occupational license. Of course, not all occupational licenses are made equal. Some are more reasonable — like requiring school bus drivers to complete a determined number of hours of driving and training. But when aspiring barbers, manicurists and massage therapists are being put through the ringer for no obvious reason, that’s a different story.
This is part of the reason the Magnolia State acted and created a review commission with teeth that will make it a lot harder for licensing boards to enact requirements without first demonstrating that they are “increasing economic opportunities” and using “the least restrictive regulation necessary to protect consumers.”
In effect, the state is now siding with workers rather than the cronies who make up many of these licensing boards and who often work to protect well-connected business interests from competition.
Now it’s time for West Virginia to steal a page from Mississippi’s playbook and it’s obvious we need it. We have made tremendous progress in reducing our state’s overall regulatory burden: Since 2015, the Legislature has repealed a total of 1,364 rules (legislative, procedural, interpretive, and legislative exempt/lottery game rules) from the State Register.In that time, we’ve reduced the State Register by approximately 62.5 percent; however, only a handful of those rules specifically pertained to occupational licensing.
Clearly, we have a great deal of work left to do. According to the Institute for Justice, a public-interest law firm, West Virginia has the 14th broadest and most onerous occupational licenses in the nation. In a study measuring 102 lower-income occupations, our state had average occupational licensing requirements of $172 in fees and 210 days of education and experience.
Additionally, West Virginia requires licensing for several occupations that other states don’t, including sign language interpreters. And when it comes to licensing auctioneers, our requirements are excessive compared to those in other states: 201 days, or six months of experience and 80 hours of education.
On paper, this may not seem like a lot. But for someone out of work and looking to make ends meet, a six-month experience requirement can be the difference between success and failure in finding work. But it sure helps protect those already practicing in that field.
To break this cartel, we should follow the lead of Mississippi and enact bold reforms that level the playing field rather than trying to fight each entrenched interest one at a time.
Supporting occupational licensing reforms is plain common sense and it’s something everyone in the Mountain State ought to support.
