MORGANTOWN — An audiologist, a barber, an electrician or a massage therapist may do more or less the same job in any of the 50 states. But they’ll have to jump through different hoops and pay different costs before they can start their job, and to keep doing it.
A team from WVU’s Knee Regulatory Research Center recently unveiled a publicly available database that provides licensing information on 50 professions across all 50 states and D.C. They introduced the database in a paper for The Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy.
Want to be an acupuncturist? In Pennsylvania, you’ll need to pay a $30 licensing application fee, earn a master’s degree and have 1,098 hours of training. You’ll need to pass the NCCAOM exam. To renew your license, you’ll need two hours of continuing education and pay a $40 renewal fee.
But next door, in West Virginia, you’ll have to pay a $500 licensing and application fee. You’ll need the master’s degree and 1,800 hours of training, but you’ll have to pass the NCCAOM plus an oral exam by the state licensing board. To renew your license, you’ll need 48 hours of continuing education plus a $425 renewal fee.
Knee RRC Assistant Director Conor Norris said that the goal of licensing in its modern form is to improve the quality of services and protect consumers from harm.
But that gives rise to several questions, he said. Does it actually achieve this goal? Does putting up more barriers mean fewer people entering the profession and practicing? Are the costs and benefits appropriate for the profession, and for the consumers who ultimately pay the regulatory costs for the services they receive?
“We have stronger evidence that licensing reduces the supply of professionals than that it ensures quality,” Norris said. “Professional licenses increase the cost and time to enter a licensed profession. As a result, consumers pay higher prices for services.”
Knee’s staff of 10 people includes two team members who review statutes and administrative codes in all 50 states (and D.C.), focusing on one or a small handful of professions at a time, gathering all the requirements. Some requirements, such as education or application fees are easy, others are more detailed and more difficult to pull out.
“No one knows how many separate licenses there are,” Norris said. “We have some estimates but that’s about it. Our goal is to eventually get all of them.” The estimate is north of 1,000 professions.
Along with the database, Knee RRC helps state legislatures understand licensing policy in order to achieve regulatory reform. They’ve testified on bills, provided white papers and written op-eds on bills in just about every state.
They’ve addressed such things as universal recognition between states, so a person moving from one state to another can easily transfer a license. And the wide difference in fees, such as the application fee for acupuncturists: $30 in Pennsylvania, $500 in West Virginia, $103.50 in Ohio, $150 in Kentucky, $525 in Maryland, $130 in Virginia.
“Often as a state legislator you don’t know what’s going on in another state,” Norris said. You have the best intentions for your own state, but limited knowledge and time. Individual states don’t even display lists of the professions they license, along with requirements, in one central location.
Knee RRC has legislation trackers who focus on identifying licensing bills, and Knee will then reach out to offer help on reform efforts whether it’s increasing or decreasing requirements, or adding a new license or de-licensing. “We want to be able to back that up with some sort of research so these laws are properly designed.”
Licensing isn’t the only possible form of regulation to protect the profession or the consumer, Norris said,
“In a lot of cases it would be smart to remove licensing or to reduce the specific requirements,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that it’s going to be some kind of Wild West where there’s no oversight whatsoever, no way to protect consumers.”
That doesn’t mean ending training requirements, either. But the market can do a good job in some cases, he said. And there are other forms of regulation to protect consumers such as bonding or insurance — for tree trimmers and falling branches. Or facility inspections for cosmetologists.
You can find the “Find Occupations” database at Knee Regulatory Research Center Occupational Regulation Database (csorwvu.com). It also includes information on transferring licenses between states, and requirements such as English proficiency, citizenship and good moral character.
Along with Norris, Knee RRC Director Edward Timmons and legislative analysts Ethan Kelley and Troy Carneal contributed to the paper.
EMAIL: dbeard@dominionpost.com
