As Washington prepares to re-open the economy, legislators should remove barriers that make it difficult for many low-income workers, people with criminal records, and immigrants to find jobs. Occupational licenses are state regulations that make it expensive and time-consuming for people with skills to find jobs. There is hope, however, in form of five bills that remove these expensive and needless barriers.  I wrote about one of the bills in the Seattle Times last year.

At a time when there is a great deal of political polarization and division, the bills have bipartisan support and are sponsored by Representative Kirby, the Democratic Chair of the Consumer Protection and Business Committee, and Representative Vick, the ranking Republican on the committee.

Additionally, we signed  Joint Letter with Columbia Legal supporting one of the bills – removing some barriers for people who have completed their prison sentences. Our letter notes that other states, including Illinois and Tennessee, have recently removed these restrictions.

Steven Slivinski, a researcher at Arizona State University, calls occupational licensing reform for those who have completed prison sentences, “the missing piece of criminal justice reform.” The Obama Administration noted that “Lower-income workers are less likely to be able to afford the tuition and lost wages associated with licensing’s educational requirements, closing the door to many licensed jobs for them.”

Research by the Institute for Justice found that Washington and Louisiana require licenses for 77 of the 102 low- to moderate-income occupations — the most of any other state. These restrictions harm those who can least afford to pay for them.

Amazingly, there are some who want to continue to keep the barriers that make finding jobs difficult for communities disproportionately hit by these rules. One reason is that those already in the industry want to lock out potential competitors and drive prices up.

There is a long history of discriminatory use of licensing requirements for this very purpose. In 1907, the State Supreme Court heard a case regarding the unequal application of licenses to a woman who was denied a license to cut hair on the grounds that she wouldn’t be able to pass the test.

Similarly, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Yick Wo vs. Hopkins that requirements for laundry businesses in San Francisco were designed to discriminate against Chinese-owned laundries. The methods of discrimination have become less blatant, but the results are no less discriminatory.

Below are the five bills, each making important changes to the current restrictions.

HB 1399
Reducing barriers to professional licensure for individuals with previous criminal convictions.
Eliminates barriers for people who have served their sentences in jobs unrelated to their conviction.

HB 1400
Creating alternative professional licensing standards.
Allowing those who demonstrate skills to take a test instead of mandating unnecessary training that is often expensive and time consuming.

HB 1401
Expediting professional licenses for new Washington residents.
Would make it easier for people who had licenses in other states and have moved to Washington, such as military families, to receive a license in Washington.

HB 1402
Establishing review standards for professional licensing regulation.
Creates standards that must be met by proposed occupational licenses to ensure they are the least restrictive method of achieving license goals.

HB 1403
Creating license review and reporting requirements.
Establishes a system to judge existing licenses to ensure they are still relevant and are meeting the intended goals.