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

HD Download

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.

Actor / Writer : Andrew Heaton
Actor / Producer: Austin Bragg
Producer / Editor: John Carter
Producer: Meredith Bragg

NEXT: Why Does the Government Run Air Traffic Control?

Hide Comments (14)

Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.

Chumby 6 hours ago

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

Log in to Reply
Longtobefree 6 hours 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.

Log in to Reply
1. Stupid Government Tricks 4 hours 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.
  
  Log in to Reply
Public Entelectual 5 hours 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.

Log in to Reply
1. Chumby 5 hours ago
  
  Was there a porpoise to your post?
  
  Log in to Reply
  1. TrickyVic (old school) 5 hours ago
    
    Blubber
    
    Log in to Reply
2. SQRLSY 5 hours 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!
  
  Log in to Reply
Vernon Depner 5 hours ago

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

Log in to Reply
1. acda999 5 hours 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.
  
  Log in to Reply
Red Rocks White Privilege 5 hours 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."

Log in to Reply
1. Longtobefree 3 hours 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.
  
  Log in to Reply
TJJ2000 3 hours 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.

Log in to Reply
Roberta 3 hours 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.

Log in to Reply
Uncle Jay 56 minutes 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?

Log in to Reply

Please log in to post comments

Why Do So Many Jobs Require a License?

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

Latest

What If TikTok Therapists Are Making People Less Happy?

Judge Orders Alligator Alcatraz To Wind Down Operations Within 60 Days

Trump's New Trade 'Deal' With the E.U. Leaves Out Beer, Wine, Booze

ICE's Tricked-Out Trucks Might Boost Recruitment, but They Won't Make America Any Safer

Egypt's Land Grab Threatens the World's Oldest Christian Monastery

Recommended

Login Form