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Talinoth t1_ja0hazo wrote

Reply to comment by JEaglewing in For marginal occupations licensed by U.S. states, the welfare costs of licensing exceeds the benefits, as workers have to expend resources to obtain the license and consumers pay higher prices. [The study looks at professions that require license in some states but not others]. by smurfyjenkins

In reality that makes getting a license - any license - in the first place a much harder ordeal, and it means that the contractor has to learn extremely location-specific knowledge for places they won't be working just to prove they can work anywhere in the country. This is despite the likely outcome that they'll disregard 90% of that information later because it's not necessary to know in their region, making that study a waste of time. This is not grand and results in the exact opposite of what we want to achieve.

  • A: It'd drive up licensing costs.
  • B: More study time would be required just to pass, and the fail rate would be higher.
  • C: The customer would have to pay more to cover the professional's increased licensing costs OR businesses would absorb losses/simply fail.
  • D: Professions that are already understaffed would be even more so, damaging the economy in various ways. Those jobs exist because somebody needs them done >!(more true of a concrete layer than a cosmetologist though)!<.

Because I think criticism is a poor substitute for offering solutions, here's an alternative:

  • Certifications for general knowledge in a profession should be nationalised, whereas location-specific knowledge should be localised. This in practice should mean that you don't have to re-do your whole license again when you move state, but you do a two or three week course that gets you up to speed with a particular type of soil/weather condition/set of local regulations.
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