State licensing requirements overly burdensome, study finds
If one aspires to be a conveyor operator, forest worker or home- entertainment system installer, they best look for work outside of Connecticut, a new study on occupational licensing requirements suggests.
Likewise, farm labor contractors, animal control officers and backflow prevention assembly testers may be better off seeking employment outside New York state.
Nationwide, licensing requirements for low- and moderate-income occupations act as “substantial” barriers to employment and can hinder job growth, according to the Institute for Justice study, “License to Work.”
The study examined 102 occupations that require a license in at least one of the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, and that are recognized by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as having an average wage that falls below the national average for all professions.
Connecticut ranked as the 15th-most “broadly and onerously licensed state,” while New York ranked 40th, based on the study”™s findings.
The ranking factors the number of occupations, out of the 102 surveyed, that are licensed in a given state, as well as the burdens associated with obtaining those licenses.
Connecticut requires licenses for 54 out of the 102 occupations that were surveyed and is the sole state to require a license for conveyor operators and for forest workers and one of three states to require a license for home entertainment installers.
The fees associated with obtaining those licenses are $142, $129 and $92, respectively. At least one exam is required for each of the three occupations.
The Constitution State is among 30 states to require a license for glazier contractors ”“ who install glass, aluminum window systems and skylights, among other items ”“ but Connecticut requires five-plus years of education and experience compared with the national average of 500 days training for that occupation.
In New York, 33 of the 102 occupations that were surveyed required licenses, however, the study found the burdens for those licenses often exceeded the national average.
New York is one of nine states to license farm labor contractors, one of 17 to license animal control officers, and one of 18 to license backflow prevention assembly testers and crane operators.
The fees for the latter four occupations range from $50 for animal control officers to $200 for farm hands, and the corresponding education and experience requirements tops out at three years for crane operators.
“The study really reveals how irrational and overly burdensome many of these licensing regimes are,” said Dick Carpenter, a co-author of the study and director of strategic research at the Washington nonprofit. “It”™s important to keep in mind, we didn”™t study doctors and lawyers and teachers and dentists ”“ we studied low and moderate-income occupations.”
While the study did not look directly at the relationship between licensure and employment figures, Carpenter said the sometimes-stringent requirements could very well be stifling job growth.
“They keep people out of the occupation of their choice. They force people to spend a lot of time and effort earning a license instead of earning a living,” he said.
Across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the 102 occupational licenses studied demand an average of $209 in associated fees, one exam and about nine months of training.
In addition, 35 occupations require an average of more than one year of education and training.
The licensing requirements have the greatest impact on “minorities, those of lesser means and those with less education,” the authors state in the report.
At least some of the licensing requirements appear to be justified. In just one example, a 2008 crane collapse in New York City resulted in seven dead and another 24 injured, perhaps lending credence to the state”™s relatively tough licensing rules for that profession.
However, Carpenter said, many of the requirements are more likely the result of various industry groups lobbying their respective state”™s legislature in hopes of limiting competition.
“What”™s at work tends to be a desire to protect themselves from competition,” he said. “We”™ve looked at this process again and again and this is what we see happening.”
Carpenter said some states, such as Michigan and Florida, are either in the process of reviewing their licensing requirements or have already done so.