Latinos Deserves the Liberty to Work — in Their Field of Choice

Kevin Garcia-Galindo, LIBRE Policy Associate

The American immigrant story takes countless forms, but nearly every success story shares one common thread: someone was able to turn hard work and talent into a fair living — and, over time, that modest start transformed into achievements no one could ever had imagined from the beginning.

What happens to these dreams, however, when the government says you need their permission to start working?

The answer is that many people opt not to follow their entrepreneurial dreams.

Picture what could have been of all the following examples if the government said they needed to go through a burdensome licensing process to start working. A nail technician or barber going from renting space in someone else’s shop to opening their own and eventually expanding into multiple locations, a bartender learning the craft of mixology on the job and later launching his own bar, and a future restaurateur perfecting his old family recipes while working out of a ghost kitchen until finally being able to open his own place on Main Street.

Why Latinos are Especially Impacted by Unnecessary Licensing

For Latino immigrants these kinds of stories are foundational. Latinos are disproportionately represented in hands on, service oriented professions, exactly like all the occupations above and unfortunately in many of the types of jobs where occupational licenses — government requirements such as mandated training, fees, and other conditions to legally enter a profession — are often required.

Despite this over representation in these fields, Latino workers continue to be about half as likely to be licensed as White, Asian, Black, and American Indian workers, according to a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

For immigrants who might not have complete command of English or have little familiarity with the licensing system, this can act as high deterrent from them achieving their dreams. Roughly over 2 million highly skilled immigrants in the US are currently underemployed, many of them specifically because of lack of occupational licensing.

It doesn’t have to be this way, however. In the modern age, consumers are far less likely to rely on licensing as a measure of quality and reputation, and instead look at other characteristics such as ratings, prices, and word of mouth, to choose whom they trust. As research shows, licensing often does little to improve quality, but it does restrict entry and raise costs.

Ways to Reform the Occupational Licensing System

Thankfully, there are completely sensible reforms that states can take to help every American actualize on their own talents. These include:

• Licensing reviews and rollbacks: Directly reduce and eliminate licensing barriers that fail to deliver important health and safety benefits while also reducing access to valuable careers of would-be workers and services of would-be consumers.
• Alternative consumer protection tools: Allow other forms of consumer protection tools such as inspections, bonding, and private certification. These will help improve accountability and protection for the public without blocking entry into professions for ambitious and talented people
• Legislation focused on the right to earn a living: Ensure that regulations are justified by real health and safety concerns, not economic protectionism. Let consumers decide who provides services for them by taking the heavy hand of government out of the way.
• Universal License Recognition: Allow workers moving across state lines to continue their careers without redundant training or fees, relying even on experience without government licensing credentials when coming from states that don’t have the same licensing mandates. 28 states and counting have already enacted reforms like this, which helps to bring a spotlight on also reducing internal state licensing barriers.

Together, these reforms move us closer to restoring the freedom of workers to offer their services and consumers to choose them, without unnecessary government meddling. Over time, occupational licensing laws have grown into one of the most significant barriers to economic mobility, driving up prices, limiting job opportunities, and slowing innovation. It’s long past time we finally put a stop to them