Comments on: Occupational Licensing and Anti-trust

By: Handle

Handle — Sat, 17 May 2014 16:07:04 +0000

The Commerce clause analysis will probably not fly, as it is almost exclusively concerned with the tradeable, mobile goods sector, and not with services in performed in person within a state’s jurisdiction. The case is strongest for when goods are mostly fungible regardless of origin, but states impose discriminatory costs between then based solely on that origin.

Anyway, the ultimate state-exclusive license is admission to the bar as an attorney. The justifying argument is that one must know the local laws in order to be competent to practice.

However, almost any professional in any state-licensed profession also must be familiar with all the laws – peculiar to that state – that regulate their activities. A locksmith in Montana doesn’t know the differences in the rules that regulate locksmiths is Maryland.

But also there are reciprocity agreements. As with admission to the bar, certain coalitions of states have agreed with each other to recognize the bar exams of other members, because of the perception that it benefits both parties and the requisite legal knowledge and standards are ‘close enough’. Why impose federal rules on all the states, when they can form a reciprocity market amongst themselves – which they already do – when they think its to the benefit of their constituents which include both their consumers and licensed professionals?

What is more reasonable in a requirement that earning a license to practice in a state be reasonable, cheap, and easy and have a rational basis. That is, the license requirements should be subject to scrutiny as to whether they impose unreasonable, irrational, and unjustifiable barriers to entry when compared to the stated purposes and concerns the license regime is meant to address.

So, a Montana locksmith should be able to take a cheap online test on Maryland locksmith law to prove he knows the local regulations before he is authorized to practice in the state. If instead Maryland requires that he also pay several thousand dollars and start a two thousand hour apprenticeship or practicum from scratch within the state, then that is clearly an abusive and unjustifiable barrier and should be invalidated.

By: Jeff R.

Jeff R. — Sat, 17 May 2014 14:55:03 +0000

If your proposal were enacted, I’d imagine you’d quickly see some state(s) start to look at licensing as a nationwide revenue source; ie, for a few hundred bucks, they’ll issue you almost any license you want, sort of like how every corporation in America has a holding company chartered in Delaware to help them avoid state corporate income taxes. Probably not a bad outcome if you ask me, but I’m sure the usual suspects would be horrified to see a regulatory regime designed to protect consumers corrupted by greedy state governments, regardless of how consumers actually fared in those circumstances.

By: Jonathan Bechtel

Jonathan Bechtel — Sat, 17 May 2014 14:18:26 +0000

In my subjective observation occupational licensing is slowly losing credibility in the court of public opinion.

It was never a good idea, but people who got locked out of professions due to licensing restrictions still ended up with a decent paying job pushing papers somewhere or another so no one got too upset.

Now that the tide has run out on a lot of people’s economic prospects the costs of licensing are slowly coming into focus for a lot of people since they can’t find work anywhere else.

I suspect labor markets will evolve towards a barbell outcome, where the licensed portions of a profession will be subject to increasing scrutiny, verification and regulation while fuzzy black markets populate around them to fill in the gaps.