Occupational Licensing

Why Do So Many Jobs Require a License?

Becoming a taxidermist or hair braider shouldn't involve costly hurdles.

Andrew Heaton | 8.22.2025 10:00 AM

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Around 20 percent of American workers must hold a professional license to do their job. Why?

Andrew Heaton has an answer. And it's infuriating.

NEXT: Why Does the Government Run Air Traffic Control?

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Chumby 10 months ago

A license is still not required to be an editor at a CUCLL publication.

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1. f7b155e 10 months ago
  
  Editing and writing are engaging in speech. The First Amendment prohibits government intrusion on speech.
  
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  1. LIBtranslator 10 months ago
    
    And yet they do it 24/7 after taking an oath before invisible fiends to uphold and defend the Constitution they spit on. Why? Because the looters have convinced the programmable that voting for what you want and getting it via spoiler vote clout is "losing."
    
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Longtobefree 10 months ago

Because so many governments want to charge fees.
Because so many government officials want to protect their buddies from competition.
The remainder of the list is left as an exercise for the reader.

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1. Stupid Government Tricks 10 months ago
  
  Bureaucrats have nothing concrete by which to measure their success, only subordinates, budgets, and regulations, and if they don't constantly issue new regulations, they risk being thought obsolescent.
  
  And government is not only nothing but bureaucrats, but they have a monopoly and coercion at their beck and call.
  
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  1. charliehall 10 months ago
    
    The problem is that pretty much every statute enacted in the past 90 years requires regulations to be written to enforce the statute. The Administrative Procedure Act was enacted in 1946 to constrain the bureaucracy, and because of that law it now takes a long time to write and promulgate those regulations. It was enacted basically in response to FDR's perceived excesses during the Great Depression and WW2. Both of those perceived excesses were probably necessary during the Great Depression and the War, but both Republicans and Democrats wanted to guard against a future President who would abuse that power -- someone like Trump. The Administrative Procedure Act requires that regulations be in accordance with the language of the statute and with the Constitution and the courts are empowered to overturn regulations that violate either. And indeed many of Trump's Executive Orders were overturned by the courts because they violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
    
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Public Entelectual 10 months ago

There was a fracas a few year's ago when an unlicensed taxidermist from New York brought home the head of a whale he decapitated in Massachusetts.

It blew over, and they made him Secretary of Health & Human Services.

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1. Chumby 10 months ago
  
  Was there a porpoise to your post?
  
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  1. TrickyVic (old school) 10 months ago
    
    Blubber
    
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2. SQRLSY 10 months ago
  
  That's a whale of a tale! I personally have been swallowed by a whale, butt I don't know if I can swallow THAT whale of a tale!
  
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3. SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad 10 months ago
  
  Sounds fishy to me.
  
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4. charliehall 10 months ago
  
  Much taxidermy work also requires a federal license.
  
  I only learned that in the past five minutes after reading your comment.
  
  I wonder whether Theodore Roosevelt had to get a taxidermy license. His home in Oyster Bay, NY, is full of dead animals!
  
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Vernon Depner 10 months ago

If it's your own wife or child being stuffed, don't you want your taxidermist to be properly certified?

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1. acda999 10 months ago
  
  Ofcourse I don't.
  
  The last thing I want while greiving over the loss of a family member is to deal with an uncompetitive practitioner defended against malpractice by a board that the practitioner regularly gives money to.
  
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Red Rocks White Privilege 10 months ago

Honestly, most of it is just tied up in the fact that in the old days (say, 30 or more years ago), a license was an indicator that the person had at least a basic level of competency, because a lot of trade occupations had an expectation of skills to do the job on a daily basis. Even in tech, you're still expected to take on a lot of different training programs for things as your career progresses, because it makes you more employable as the technology itself evolves.

Post-Y2K, getting a license isn't necessarily about demonstrating basic competency, it's simply pencil-whipping a test to get your Good Boi stamp of approval from the petty bureaucrats so you aren't "left behind."

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1. Longtobefree 10 months ago
  
  "Even in tech, you're still expected to take on a lot of different training programs for things as your career progresses, because it makes you more employable as the technology itself evolves."
  
  Unless your career started in the early seventies. Then you learned COBOL, IBM utilities, and spent the next 45 years doing the same thing. The language evolved, but a few minutes a month reading manuals was all the continuing education you needed.
  
  Three notes:
  1970 was when the industry, through banks processing 30 year mortgages, knew there would be a major issue in the 1999/2000 transition.
  1970 was also when the industry had to transition from one digit year fields to two digit years.
  1972 was the first year we were told COBOL was dying out and we all "had" to learn the latest thing.
  
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  1. Red Rocks White Privilege 10 months ago
    
    Yeah, except that rapidly changed after the internet took off.
    
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  2. charliehall 10 months ago
    
    I was a COBOL programmer in 1981-1982.
    
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TJJ2000 10 months ago

Licensing ... How politicians try to cover-up their politician driven education failures
...because 'Gun' packing politicians are Gods and they know everything. /s

For anyone who isn't a politician a $50 Cisco Certification says more than $250,000 in Commie-Indoctrination & State Licensing because people who 'do' know things that politicians just want to argue idiotically-blindly about.

The worst curse of our time is people who think 'Guns' (Gov-Guns) are the answer to every ill under the sun.

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Roberta 10 months ago

Some of those licenses are things the authorities don't want anyone to get. The shampooer assistant thing was made ridiculously expensive because the job is so unremunerative, it's really to require everyone in hairdressing to have a full cosmetology license, and not employ shampoo girls per se. Fortune telling they want to outlaw so they make the license unobtainable; same with naturopaths in some states, to enforce orthodoxy in health care.

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1. jimc5499 10 months ago
  
  You have a point. In Pennsylvania, Barbers and Beauticians are required to be licensed. The State's main argument for it is to protect the health of their customers. As a result both receive instruction on how to provide their services to people with communicable diseases. Yet Barber Shops and Beauty Shops were among the first things to be shut down during COVID.
  One thing that hasn't been mentioned is CONTROL. A license can be revoked on a whim, with no recourse. Pennsylvania is famous for threatening people who have licenses, with their removal if they don't kow tow to the politician's commands.
  
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  1. charliehall 10 months ago
    
    Barbers and Beauticians are required to have training in infection control. That is actually quite important even when there isn't a pandemic.
    
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2. LIBtranslator 10 months ago
  
  So "their" imagined intentions are what matter, not the gun in their hands?
  
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Uncle Jay 10 months ago

If there were no licensing fees, state and federal bureaucrats would have to get a real job, and who wants that on their conscience?

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1. TJJ2000 10 months ago
  
  ^BINGO. So well stated +100000000000.
  The only humanitarian 'real job' of a monopoly of 'Guns' is to defend Individual Liberty and ensure Justice for all.
  
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2. charliehall 10 months ago
  
  The reason for the licensing fees is to keep taxes low.
  
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AT 10 months ago

At least with a license you'll know she went to an accredited psychic school.

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1. Chumby 10 months ago
  
  EnB will pen an article about licensing handjob artists.
  
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2. LIBtranslator 10 months ago
  
  Ackshully, Altruist Totalitarians will believe in Good Faith that tuition was paid to the blessed schule.
  
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LIBtranslator 10 months ago

THAT's a half-octahedron house.

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Sequel 10 months ago

If you've ever seen what Amazon sells to allow people to repair broken teeth and dental work, you'll probably want to re-examine why dental hygienists are not allowed to operate independently ... and why dentists appear to need much higher licensing requirements.

Private equity is turning some professions that used to thrive on great customer/patient relationships into a societal hazard zone.

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1. charliehall 10 months ago
  
  Private Equity is actually destroying capitalism.
  
  One of the geniuses of the capitalist system was joint stock limited liability companies that anyone -- absolutely anyone -- could become a part owner in for a rather modest investment. It allowed the middle class and even the working class to share the profits of our profitable capitalist system. There were regulations, of course -- both from the government and from the stock exchanges. They were mostly about preventing fraud and punishing fraudsters. Even some libertarians think that fraud should be punished. Creative fraudsters like Donald Trump create complicated ownership structures to prevent anyone from understanding where their money goes and how it is earned. The Trump Organization is as opaque as a brick wall painted black and has been an Organized Criminal Enterprise for decades. It was convicted of 17 felonies and paid a small fine. Corporations are persons! This is why nobody on Wall Street will do business with Trump; they know that everything he says or writes is a lie.
  
  Private Equity restricts the opportunity to benefit from the best of capitalism to the already rich. And so do fraudsters. Regulations protect the public and the economy.
  
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rxc 8 months ago

These licenses are just like the guilds that existed for a very long time, but now the government controls them and the politicians benefit by handing out "nice good paying govt jobs with paid Healthcare and pensions" to their supporters - the unions of the govtv workers.

Unions used to serve the guild function in private companies, until they would not let minorities join or work for those companies. They still do a lot of the same work, even now.

The Democrats have a vision of a future where there is a wise, beautiful queen in charge, supported by her wise Latina advisors and men to do the icky stuff. There also be wise thinkers in universities to do research and communicate with the people. Beautiful objects will be crafted by skilled workers who belong to guilds, while the vast majority will be taught how to understand the direction from their betters, and how to obey their direction. The majority of the workers will know how to till the earth, sow and harvest crops, and maybe able to make basic agricultural tools. For this they will be rewarded with a steady supply of nourishing vegan gruell and a small communal fire, where they can rest, sing stiring songs, and complement one another about all the good work they are doing

It will be utopia.

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