Yes, Licensing Boards Are Cartels
13th September 2017
Licensing boards are perhaps the most powerful labor institution in American history.
The best estimates available suggest that roughly 30 percent of American workers are now required to get a license from one of those quasi-government agencies before they can enter the workforce. That’s about the same percentage of the workforce that was a member of a union in the 1950s, the decade when union membership peaked before falling off to about half that percentage today.
There’s no debate about whether the federal government has a role to play in regulating the activities of labor unions, of course. Should Congress do something about licensing boards?