You need a license for that?

End needless red tape for Pa. practitioners

If you live in Pennsylvania and you want a job as a cemetery broker, you need a license. If you want to be an assistant cemetery broker, you need a license.

And, hang on to your hat, if you want to braid natural hair, yes, you need a license for that, too.

More than a million state residents currently hold professional licenses, of which there are 250 or so kinds, according to the state Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs.

Pennsylvania’s occupational licensing protocols would be laughable if they weren’t so consequential in real-life, real-people, real-money ways.

Licenses take time and cost money to obtain, making them barriers to employment.

They create a kind of unfair commercial protectionism for those who already are license-holders.

They are an uncontested contributor to recidivism for ex-offenders who have served their time and need gainful employment. The Commonwealth Foundation, a Harrisburg-based conservative think tank, issued a policy memo in August indicating states with the highest occupational licensing requirements have seen recidivism rise by 9 percent in a threeyear period.

Licenses cost Pennsylvania consumers money because fewer providers mean less competition which, in turn, means higher fees.

Gov. Tom Wolf has said he wants to reform the state’s professional licensure rules. He’d like to eliminate more than a dozen occupational licences including those for auctioneers, barbers, campground membership salespeople, barbers and natural hair braiders. (By the way, some two dozen states including West Virginia have no such rules for natural hair braiders and legislators elsewhere, including in Ohio, are in the process of trimming theirs.)

The governor also proposes a repeal of an automatic 10-year ban on 13 types of licenses for those convicted of drug felonies. Instead of an automatic denial, the pertinent licensing board would have the option to consider the circumstances and decide whether to grant the license.

All of this requires legislative action. And it should come quickly. President Trump gets it. In July, he signed legislation providing states with funding to study the burdens of occupational licensing and certifications. President Obama also supported reform. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that in 2015, more than 25 percent of workers needed a license to work. That compared to 5 percent in the 1950s.

Until something is done by Pennsylvania’s lawmakers, know this: If you want to be a cemetery associate broker, cemetery broker, geologist in training, manager of real estate records or an orthotics fitter, head to one of our neighboring states. Those jobs don’t require licenses there.