“By most accounts, the current economic recovery has been slower than a tortoise with a bad hangover,” writes A. Barton Hinkle. And there’s plenty of reasons why.
Hinkle offers a few:
In Jacksonville and San Antonio, permits take about four months; over the past decade the housing supply increased 43 percent and 46 percent, respectively, and housing prices increased 107 percent in each city. By contrast, permits in San Francisco and Oakland take more than 10 months, the supply has increased only 12 and 17 percent and housing prices increased by 278 percent and 220 percent.
Sixty-four percent of new jobs are created by small businesses (those with 500 or fewer employees), startups especially. But such businesses are increasingly incommoded by government rules that restrict what they can do or require government’s permission to do it. And it is probably no coincidence that the rate of new-business creation has fallen behind the rate of business closures in recent years.
Half a century ago fewer than one worker out of 20 needed a government license to do his job. Now almost one in three does. The licensing regimes, frequently driven by industry incumbents, often make little sense: In Nevada, you need two years of training to become a travel guide, but only 26 days to become an emergency medical technician. If you want to shine shoes in the District of Columbia, you need four different licenses. Occupational licensing has grown so burdensome even the Obama White House has proposed reform.
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