In the News
Massachusetts salon owner says he wants to hire more workers. Licensing is the reason he can’t
“In many ways, occupational licensing has become one of the major labor policy issues facing today’s workforce,” Jarrett Dieterle, director of commercial freedom policy for the R Street Institute, a free market think tank, told the House subcommittee today. “One out of four Americans needs a government license to work, and the average license requires almost a year of educational training, passing an exam, and paying over $250 in fees.”
Those burdens can fall harder on low-income individuals who might not have the time or money to afford 1,000 hours or more in training classes for a job that they might already know how to do, Dieterle says.