By Greg R. Lawson

Thank you, Chairman Coley, Vice Chair Seitz, Ranking Member Yuko, and members of the Senate Government Oversight and Reform Committee, for the opportunity to testify regarding Senate Bill 213. My name is Greg R. Lawson. I am the Statehouse Liaison at The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a free market think tank that believes low taxes and limited government regulations will lead to a more prosperous Ohio.

Senate Bill 213 takes a small, but significant step to reduce rather absurd occupational licensing requirements in Ohio. Considering the hundreds of hours of training currently required to legally braid hair in Ohio, the Buckeye State is undoubtedly one of the safest states in the country to get a haircut.[1] Ohio Cosmetologists must complete 250 hours of more training than their peers in Pennsylvania, and 500 more hours than hairdressers in New York.[2] Such training requirements sound ridiculous because they are—especially when compared to the 150 hours of training required to be a state certified Emergency Medical Technician.[3] Ohio law requires a cosmetologist to have 10 times the training of EMTs. The case for licensing reform doesn’t get much clearer.

Fortunately, Senate Bill 213 will substantially lower barriers and eliminate the state’s one-of-a-kind “salon manager’s license.” Unfortunately, Senate Bill 213 does little to address other barriers-to-entry for aspiring cosmetologists, and Ohio will still require more mandatory cosmetology training hours than Pennsylvania[4] or New York.[5] But at least it’s a start.

Of course, Ohio’s over-licensing problem extends well beyond the local hair salon. The Buckeye Institute recently released Forbidden to Succeed: How Licensure Laws Hold Ohioans Back, a new report revealing that although Ohio is not the worst state for occupational licensing, the licensing burdens that she does impose tend to be well above average.[6] Of Ohio’s 31 moderate-income occupations requiring licensure, 15 require hundreds or thousands of hours of training. Remarkably, nearly every Ohio license that requires training can be earned in less time in another state.[7] Requiring appropriate training and licensing for jobs with health and safety concerns, such as physicians and pilots, is undoubtedly needed for ensuring public safety. No one disputes this. But this concern fades dramatically when applied, for example, to auctioneers, travel guides, and hair dressers.

Onerous licensing burdens—essentially requiring workers to ask the government for a permission slip to earn a living—make Ohio less competitive, less prosperous, and less attractive to entrepreneurs and their employees. For a state still struggling to create new jobs, relieving these burdens remains imperative. Although Ohio has done yeoman’s work to recover from the Great Recession, she has not yet rebounded from the tech bubble burst and is still down nearly 200,000 private sector jobs from March 2000.[8] The state’s labor force participation rate continues to slide toward historic lows—just 62.3 percent in October[9]—sending an ominous signal that although Ohio’s job market is improving, it still has a long way to go.[10]

Even more concerning are the daunting employment prospects faced by many in Ohio’s minority communities. Nationally, the unemployment rate among African Americans remains much higher than among other demographics. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate last month was 9.4 percent for African Americans compared to 4.3 percent for whites.[11] Similarly, unemployment confronts a staggering 23.7 percent of young African Americans between 16 and 19, and 13.5 percent of young whites.[12] Licensing requirements only make finding a job more difficult. Every unnecessary license is a red-taped hurdle that must cleared. Every hour of unnecessary, unpaid training needed to satisfy bureaucratic requirements is an hour not spent earning tips, impressing a boss, serving a customer, or climbing a corporate ladder. Those are hours of productivity, hours of opportunity that young, low-income workers sorely need, but that the state continues to take away.

Senate Bill 213 and reforming Ohio’s occupational licensing laws will help remove at least some of the obstacles faced by the state’s workforce. More reforms are needed, of course, but the fewer hurdles there are to clear, the faster Ohio—and her hair dressers— can pursue prosperity and success.

Thank you for your time and I welcome any questions that the committee might have.

1. Ohio Rev. Code §4713.28.

2. Ohio. Rev. Code §4713.28.

3. Ohio Admin. Code §4765-15-05.

4. 49 Pa. Code §7.32d.

5. N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. Tit. 19, §162.4.

6. Tom Lampman, “Forbidden to Succeed: How Licensure Laws Hold Ohioans Back,” The Buckeye Institute, November 18, 2015, http://buckeyeinstitute.org/uploads/files/Forbidden_to_Succeed.pdf

7. Ibid.

8. The Buckeye Institute, “Ohio by the Numbers – October, 2015,” The Buckeye Institute, accessed November 6, 2015, http://buckeyeinstitute.org/uploads/files/ObN-2015-10.pdf

9. Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, “Employment Situation Indicators for Ohio, October 2015,” Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, accessed November 6, 2015, http://jfs.ohio.gov/RELEASES/unemp/201511/Ohio-US_EmploymentSituation.stm

10. Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, “Ohio and U.S. Employment Situation- Seasonally Adjusted,”Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, accessed December 7, 2015, http://jfs.ohio.gov/RELEASES/unemp/201511/index.stm

11. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Table A-2. Employment Status of Civilian Population by Race, Sex, and Age,” U.S. Department of Labor, accessed December 7, 2015, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm

12. Ibid.