February 3, 2017 at 2:54 p.m.
Undoubtedly, some professions and occupations need to be regulated. You wouldn't want to be cared for by somebody practicing medicine without a license or be represented in court by someone practicing law without a license.
Still, in the era of big government and overregulation, licensing in general has gotten out of hand. Most often it is a way for occupational training schools, colleges, and technical schools, not to mention the state, to make money off the backs of hard-working residents.
Getting a license requires school costs and license fees to the state, after all, and often excessive annual retraining mandates can drive the costs up even more. Thousands of hours of training, and in many cases post-graduate degrees, are needed to hang out a shingle.
Several years ago, for example, we examined licensing and continuing education requirements for barbers and cosmetologists in the state and found them to be absurd. Those requirements might have been needed 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago, because unsanitary practices in hair salons and barber shops could in some instances spread infection, including blood-borne diseases such as hepatitis.
But even a century ago that was a rare manifestation, and it is virtually unheard of today. Still, state bureaucrats use public health and safety as an excuse to license and charge hefty fees.
If instead they would just let the market work, the cream of the cosmetology crop would rise to the top, as would happen in many occupations.
For example, if you want to be a licensed cosmetologist in Wisconsin, according to the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services, you have to graduate from a course with at least 1,550 training hours within 10 months in a school of cosmetology licensed by the department. That will cost you, in some cases between $5,000 and $15,000.
Or, if you want to take the long way around, you have to successfully complete an apprenticeship of at least 3,712 hours of practical training and at least 288 training hours of theoretical instruction in a school of cosmetology licensed by the department. That will cost you, too.
Then you have to pass an exam. That will cost you more.
Oh, that exam will be administered by one vendor contracted by the department, D.L. Roope.
Then cosmetologists have to get their license renewed every two years. That requires four hours of continuing education by an approved provider (a cost of around $35) and a license renewal fee of $82.
Is all this necessary? Not if other states are indication. Most states don't require continuing education and the hours required for licensing vary by state. A license might be needed, but the requirements seem onerous.
Of course, it's not just occupational business professions that will be looked at but trades and other professions, too. Wisconsin licenses an array of professions, from dietitians to landscape architects to interior designers, who are aren't licensed or regulated in other states, according to a report by Collin Roth of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty.
Roth says occupational licensing is a significant problem in Wisconsin, with a 34-percent increase over 20 years in the number of regulated credential holders and an 84-percent increase over 20 years in the number of regulated license types.
All this means fewer jobs in those occupations, and less money in the pockets of those who are lucky enough to have a job in those occupations.
The sunrise and sunset review commissions represent a good proposal, a good first step, and they should be comprehensive in their review.
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