Opposition to the licensing of occupations and professions is not a partisan issue. It is a philosophical one. The advocates for change, reform, or outright elimination come from all sides.

The first U.S. President to address the issue was Barack Obama when in 2015, the White House released a seventy-six page report prepared jointly by the Department of Treasury Office of Economic Policy, the Council of Economic Advisors, and the Department of Labor: “Occupational Licensing: A Framework for Policy Makers.” President Donald Trump talked about it, but little to nothing was done. While some commentators have opined that the former president’s only initiative was to undo everything Obama set in place, the one area the two agreed on – and a policy Trump embraced – was “fixing” occupational licensing. Within months of his appointment in July 2017, then Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta called on state lawmakers to repeal licensing laws.

In an Executive Order released on July 9, 2021, entitled “Promoting Competition in the American Economy,” President Joe Biden has now taken up the mantle. In it, he “encourages” the Federal Trade Commission “to ban unnecessary occupational licensing restrictions that impede economic mobility.” In so doing, he espoused the now monotonous refrain that licensing intended to protect public health, safety and welfare squashes competition and is therefore bad. The Order presents no facts to support this assertion, only raw statistics indicating a rise in licensed occupations (with no comparative statistics on the rise in our overall population.)

“Overly burdensome occupational licensing requirements that impede worker mobility and suppress wages also restrict competition,” reads the Order. “Today, almost 30% of jobs in the United States require a license, up from less than 5% in the 1950’s. That locks some people out of jobs, and makes it harder for people to move between states.”

Only time will tell how this Executive Order will play out. And it is worthy of note that it is not a mandate; the FTC is “encouraged” to take action. But we in North Carolina have firsthand knowledge of the FTC’s approach to licensing boards and conduct it considers anti-competitive and anti-consumer. We have been left a legacy with the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. FTC, 574 U.S. 494.

A narrow reading of this Order says: “Address the overly burdensome requirements and the issue of license mobility between the various states.” Albeit the full extent of this Order in practice remains to be seen, but if the past decade is any indicator, I believe this recent presidential Executive Order will be viewed as a call to arms.

So stay tuned boards and board attorneys. I predict we are in for a resurgence of active opposition.

July 21, 2021/by Administrative