Immigration depresses wages; college costs are soaring; and job licensing bars quality jobs.
Last week, after Mitt Romney talked about poverty,President Obama mocked him: "That's great! Let's go do something about it!"
Well, Romney's not running after all, so Obama will have to aim his sarcasm somewhere else. But for those inclined to take him up on his challenge to "go do something about it," there are lots of opportunities. As Vice President Joe Biden also said last week, "the past six years have been really, really hard for this country." So what can we do to make things better? Here are some ideas on easing poverty and income inequality that just might work.
Immigration: Yes, we're a nation of immigrants. But it's also true that when you allow a lot of low-skilled immigrants in from Mexico and Central America, you push down wages for low-skilled American citizens. You want to help poor workers in America? Cut down on the number of people competing for their jobs. (The well-off understand the impact of competition, which is why nobody's talking about opening up immigration to unlimited numbers of foreign lawyers, doctors, dentists, accountants or, God forbid, pundits. As Reihan Salam observed in Slate last week, the upper-middle-class is hyper-vigilant about protecting its turf from competition. Likewise, Silicon Valley firms are always trying to relax visas for tech workers so as to push American wages in that sector down, because that's what immigration does to wages.
Like this column? Get more in your e-mail inbox
Education: Yes, Obama's free community college program is a start. But if Republicans in Congress want to make hay, they should also require that every college receiving federal funds — which is pretty much all of them — accept community college credits 100% for purposes of transferring. This would substantially help lower-income students trying to get four-year degrees. On a further note, we could go national on something like former Texas governor Rick Perry's plan to make it possible to get a four-year college degree for $10,000. Already, 12 Texas colleges have signed on. (Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, have some additional ideas, too.) Meanwhile, at the K-12 level, we need to promote school choice, and alternatives such as online and home schooling, that can offer students better education than failing public schools, at lower cost. If education is a key to alleviating poverty and income inequality, then schools should be run for the benefit of students, not the benefit of teachers and administrators.
Job licensing: As Slate's Salam notes, pervasive occupational regulation is one of the ways that the upper-middle class keeps the middle and lower classes down. In the Internet world, people still sing the praises of "permissionless innovation," but in the real world, "permissionless employment" used to be the rule. Now it's becoming the exception. In the 1950s, only one in 20 needed a license for employment. Now, according to a recent reportin The New York Times, it's three in 10. These include things like taxi drivers, hair braiders and teeth whiteners. President Obama's budget includes money to analyze this problem, but I see no need to wait. As the Times notes, occupational licensing is touted as a protection for consumers, but in practice it mostly just protects the licensed from competition, protection for which they reward politicians with votes and donations.
The right to employment is protected by the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment, which also grants Congress the power to pass "appropriate legislation" to protect rights. Congress should act to make state licensing laws subject to strict judicial scrutiny, and should also require states to recognize each other's professional and occupational licenses so as to enhance mobility and opportunity. Why should a dentist, lawyer or psychologist — much less a barber — who wants to move to California or Florida have to ask permission from a state board to practice her profession?
Well, President Obama challenged us to "go do something about" the problems of poverty and inequality in America. Here are three ideas that Congress could enact now. Will the White House get behind them if they do? I can't imagine why not.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, is the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment