Freedom Flix

Should You Need the Government’s Permission to Work?

License to Work: A National Study of Burdens from Occupational Licensing is the first national study to measure how burdensome occupational licensing laws are for lower-income workers and aspiring entrepreneurs.

The report documents the license requirements for 102 low- and moderate-income occupations—such as barber, massage therapist and preschool teacher—across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It finds that occupational licensing is not only widespread, but also overly burdensome and frequently irrational.

On average, these licenses force aspiring workers to spend nine months in education or training, pass one exam and pay more than $200 in fees. One third of the licenses take more than a year to earn. At least one exam is required for 79 of the occupations.

Barriers like these make it harder for people to find jobs and build new businesses that create jobs, particularly minorities, those of lesser means and those with less education.

License to Work recommends reducing or removing needless licensing barriers. The report’s rankings of states and occupations by severity of licensure burdens make it easy to compare laws and identify those most in need of reform.

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Freedom Flix

The Institute for Justice is always looking for new ways to promote the message of freedom. To that end, IJ produced the following videos in-house to tell the stories of our clients and their fight for individual liberty.

None of this — the cases or these videos — would be possible without the continued generosity of our donors. We hope you enjoy them and share them with those who need a little inspiration.

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		My Streets My Eats: Free Chicago's Mobile Vendors from Anti Competitive Laws (3:05) Chicago laws make it nearly impossible to sell tasty food on the go. The City Council is considering a freer regime, but the proposed law still bans entrepreneurs from selling in the morning or stopping anywhere near a building where food is sold.
		Streets of Dreams: Challenging Atlanta's Street Vending Monopoly (4:15) Larry Miller and Stanley Hambrick are street vendors in Atlanta. But two years ago, Atlanta handed over all public-property vending to a single company that wants to throw Larry and Stanley out of the spots they have worked for decades to build kiosks.
		Untangling African Hairbraiders from Utah's Cosmetology Regime (3:36) Jestina Clayton, a college graduate, wife, mother of two and refugee from Sierra Leone’s civil war has been braiding hair for most of her life. Now she wants to use her considerable skills to help provide for her family while her husband finishes his edu
		Unraveling Unconstitutional Government Regulation in Arizona (3:30) The Arizona Board of Cosmetology is now requiring skilled threaders to obtain an aesthetician license, which requires at least 600 hours of classroom instruction—not one hour of which teaches or tests threading—and that can cost over $10,000. But threade
		SUPER PACs: Occupy the Courts, Colbert & the Fight for Free Speech (2:59)
		Georgia Law Enforcement Often Refuses to Report Forfeiture Funds, a Violation of GA Law (2:58) Georgia has some of the worst civil forfeiture laws in the country. But, in an attempt to at least ensure civil forfeiture is subject to public scrutiny, state law requires local law enforcement agencies to annually itemize and report all property obtaine
		Clark Neily: H.B. 3637 Would Keep Horse Teeth Floating Legal in Texas & Protect Horse Owners (3:51) IJ's Clark Neily debunks three myths spread by the Texas Veterinary cartel to promote an anticompetitive campaign against Texas horse teeth floaters. H.B. 3637 would keep teeth floating legal in Texas and protect horses and horse owners' freedom to choose
		EPIC EMINENT DOMAIN BATTLE: Inner-City Kids, Boxing Gym Fight Back (4:51) A San Diego-area boxing gym that serves at-risk kids is showing what it takes to fight for what is right and to win. The Community Youth Athletic Center (CYAC) is fighting to keeps it's gym from land-hungry developers bent on eminent domain for private ga
		Scorched Earth: Eminent Domain Abuse in the Gardens of Mount Holly (6:57) The township of Mount Holly, N.J., has been systematically destroying the Gardens—a close-knit community of over 300 garden-style row homes—for the past decade. Officials want to hand the property over to Keating Urban Partners, for luxury townhomes and a
		Mobile Vendors in El Paso Texas Can't Operate Within 1,000 Feet of Brick-and-Mortar Competitors (2:12) Should the city of El Paso, Texas, be allowed to turn itself into a No-Vending Zone in order to protect brick-and-mortar restaurants from competition?
		IJ Launches the Center for Judicial Engagement (3:33) The Institute for Justice launches the Center for Judicial Engagement
		More Lessons from Camp Politics (0:55) Will the new Congress respect free speech or act like they went to Camp Politics? Check out this bonus footage from the original Camp Politics video.
		IJ on the Individual Mandate (2:25) If government-mandated health insurance is upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) case is argued in March 2012, the Institute for Justice warns in its amicus brief that there will be dire and predicta
		IJ Fights to Unleash Free Speech (1:40) Arlington, Va., entrepreneur Kim Houghton, owner of Wag More Dogs canine boarding and grooming facility in Arlington, wasn’t looking for a fight. All she wanted to do was build goodwill with dog owners by creating a fun and whimsical mural on the back wa
		The Dirty Game of AZ's "Clean Elections" (2:45) The Institute for Justice is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review and reverse a decision of the Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals, which upheld Arizona's system of financing campaigns that uses taxpayer money to punish traditionally funded candidates and ind
		Why Can't Chuck Get His Business Off the Ground? (5:05) Why Can't Chuck Get His Business Off the Ground?
		Arizona School Choice Fight Goes to U.S. Supreme Court (3:22)
		Camp Politics: Training the Next Generation of Censors Since 1974 (3:04)
		License to Describe: Defeating Washington D.C.'s Tour Guide Licensing Scheme (2:33) In Washington, D.C., talking without a license can land you in jail for 90 days.
		Free the Monks & Free Enterprise: Saint Joseph Abbey v. Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors (2:39) Under Louisiana law, it is a crime for anyone but a licensed funeral director to sell funeral merchandise, which includes caskets. To sell caskets legally, the monks of Saint Joseph Abbey would have to abandon their calling for one full year to apprenti