03/28/2024

Right and Left Agree – Occupational Licensing Gets In The Way Of Upward Mobility

Millions of Americans are shut out of jobs they could do because of occupational licensing laws. They have the ability and desire, but can’t overcome the high cost of getting the governmental license that’s required before they can legally work in a job field.

Examples of this are legion. Here’s just one I came across recently in the state where I live, North Carolina. An immigrant, Jasna Bukvic-Bhayani is skilled in applying makeup, but she wants to open a school to teach others how to do that. When she announced in Facebook that she planned open a school for makeup artists, she was visited by the North Carolina Board of Cosmetic Art Examiners and informed that she could not legally operate such a school without a license.

As we read in this Carolina Journal story, the requirements for a state license were “A mandatory esthetics curriculum, buying up to $10,000 in non-makeup-related equipment, and teaching more than 500 hours of non-makeup instruction.”

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