The main point of occupational licensing is, we're told, to protect the public from incompetent and crooked practitioners in various trades and professions. That licensing more often protects the licensed from competition and jacks up prices in the process has been revealed by many researchers (and even defended by a few advocates of intrusive regulation). But evidence continues to grow from multiple sources that occupational licensing acts as a barrier to entry for the most vulnerable people without offering much in the way of benefit to the public.
"In the United States, nearly one in every four workers is licensed. However, this rate is not constant across groups: workers of color are substantially less likely to be licensed relative to White, non-Latino/a workers," finds a study published earlier this month by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "The disparity is largest for Latino/a workers, who are about half as likely (11 percentage points less) to be licensed than White, non-Latino/a workers. Asian, Black, and American Indian and Alaska Native workers are also less likely than White workers to be licensed, by 6, 5, and 4 percentage points, respectively."
