If you're going to be a family doctor, and prescribe drugs to our children, yes, please put a copy of your degree and various diplomas--not to mention state licenses--up on the office wall. We'd like to see them.
Same goes for pharmacists. And teachers. And opticians. And midwives and school bus drivers and all the other people who make incredibly important, sometimes life or death, decisions in this world.
But a manicurist? Why does Arkansas require 140 days of training and two exams before licensing a manicurist?
The lieutenant governor of this state made news the other day after a meeting with the feds at the Labor Department. Tim Griffin, and his host Alexander Acosta at Labor, both say that licensing requirements have spiraled out of control lately. Especially in Arkansas.
"In 1950, only about 1 in 20 jobs required a license," Secretary Acosta noted recently. "Today, more than 1 in 4 Americans need a license to legally perform their work."
Lt. Gov. Griffin agreed, telling the press that "we need to makes sure that [licensing requirements] make sense, that they're reasonable, that they're rational. Not all the ones that we have are."
Cue the Institute for Justice, a Virginia-based nonprofit. Its mission: To show the world how crazy some of this stuff can be.
The I-for-J studied more than a hundred jobs, and the licensing requirements for each in the several states. And broke them down for each state. (You can find the latest report at http://ij.org/report/license-work-2/)
It shows that 50 states license preschool teachers. Which is reasonable enough.
How many license nursery workers, who can help you find the shrub you're looking for among the holly and azalea? Only two, Arkansas being one of them.
All states require a license to be a pest control applicator, and who can blame them? That person is putting out poison near or in your home, school or workplace.
But how any states require a license to be a title examiner? Seven. Including Arkansas.
Arkansas requires a license to be a milk sampler. And a head football coach at high school. And requires fees and sometimes exams to be an auctioneer, a massage therapist, an athletic trainer, a drywall contractor, a door repair contractor (!) and even a bill collector. It takes three tests to be a barber. And a minimum grade level to be a makeup artist. The state of Arkansas makes a body apply for a license before they're allowed to shampoo hair.
Question: If it's so important to have a license to be a sign language interpreter, then why don't most other states require it?
For a good example of how burdensome Arkansas makes things, this state requires a fire alarm installer to have five years experience before getting his own license. The state of New York--New York!--requires two weeks on-the-job training.
This isn't just some obscure government program that doesn't affect people. And it's not doctor-and-lawyer money we're talking about, either. The state of Arkansas has put up obstacles in front of hard-working people who want jobs that pay a livable wage. Why does the state do this? And why does this state do it more often than most others? Arkansas, according to the report, is in the Top Five of the most licensed states. Being in the Top Five is good in football. In licensing requirements, it's a burden.
Some of us more cynical and world-weary types might suggest that folks in some of these occupations might just approve of all these licenses and fees. They might like for licensing requirements to be burdensome, or at least lengthy and time-consuming. It keeps the competition down.
The Legislature, not the lieutenant governor, would have to make any changes to make the state more job-friendly. Here's hoping that will happen soonest. Our betters can begin by taking a long look, maybe even study, the number of jobs in this state that require all these licenses and paperwork.
If any lawmakers are looking for a starting point, or some comparisons between Arkansas and other states, some outfit called the Institute for Justice has this website . . . .
Editorial on 12/14/2017