New Illinois Task Force Formed to Remove Barriers to Employment & Entrepreneurship

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Illinoisans in a variety of occupations face a major barrier to working: state-mandated licensing. Licensing requirements include minimum education, fees and exams. These demands represent an insurmountable wall keeping many disadvantaged individuals out of jobs. Yet Illinois is now poised to make progress in reducing these barriers with the establishment of the new CLIMB Task Force.

The Comprehensive License Information to Minimize Barriers (CLIMB) Task Force is made of advocates, academics and administrators and led by Representative Carol Ammons (D, IL-103) and Senator Christopher Belt (D, IL-57) as Chair and Vice Chair. This week the leaders made their final appointments of members who will work on the year-long investigation into Illinois’ occupational licensing laws.

“People of color and low-income families face many challenges to becoming financially stable, including professional licenses” said CLIMB Task Force Chair Representative Ammons. “Fees, exams, and other requirements leave people with little money, time, or resources and few alternatives. The CLIMB Task Force is going to help lawmakers, community stakeholders, and the private sector to come up with practical solutions to this problem. In order to shape laws that enfranchise more people, the CLIMB Task Force will detail specific line items that keep disadvantaged people from getting a license. I look forward to the results of the report generated by this task force and the future work we will be doing to correct these institutional obstacles.”

The bill creating the CLIMB Task Force, HB5575, was a joint effort between the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship (IJ Clinic) and the Small Business Advocacy Council (SBAC), and passed the Illinois House & Senate with wide bipartisan support this past summer. The CLIMB Task Force will hold monthly meetings to identify unnecessary barriers that make obtaining an occupational license too difficult or costly for low- to moderate-income earners. The task force will work closely with the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) to gather and analyze data on how much licenses cost, how accessible is the training required for licensing, and whether current licensing laws put people of color, immigrants and formerly incarcerated people at a disadvantage when working to obtain a license.

In Illinois, each occupational license sunsets, or is automatically repealed after a set number of years. The Illinois General Assembly must then vote to keep the license in place or to make changes to the law. Reports currently compiled by the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget contain little information about the costs or burdens to individuals trying to obtain a license, especially individuals from marginalized communities and those making at or below the annual median income in Illinois.

For instance, analysis from the Institute for Justice uncovered the shocking student debt burden beauty school students in Illinois take on to meet licensing requirements. The vast majority of students take nearly $8,000 in loans in order to enter a career that, on average, pays less than $30,000 a year. The CLIMB Task Force will produce a report in December 2023 with recommendations to the General Assembly to make occupational licensing more equitable and accessible for all Illinoisans.

The CLIMB Task Force brings a diverse group of experts, advocates, and regulators together to analyze licensing data from a variety of perspectives. Task force members include:

• Representative Amy Elik (R, IL-111)
• Adam Schuster, Public Policy Analyst & Consultant
• Brad Karlin, Deputy General Counsel, IDFPR
• Paula Worthington, Director, University of Chicago Policy Labs
• Joe Bradley, Health Innovation Professor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• Michelle Dix, Principal, Urban Focus Planning & Design
• Samantha Carter, Small Business Owner
• Mark McCombs, Policy Analyst, Safer Foundation
• Marlon Chamberlain, Chair, Live Free Decarceration Advisory Committee

The push to reduce barriers and burdens in occupational licensing has been gaining momentum nationally and at the state level since the Obama Administration. A number of neighboring states have already passed considerable licensing reform measures, including Ohio, Iowa, and Missouri. Illinois has recently implemented some reforms to occupational licensing, including an expedited approval process for active duty military service members and their spouses. Additionally, Chair Ammons, the IJ Clinic, and SBAC passed HB5576 in the last session, which requires that GOMB answer additional questions in their sunset reports that speak to the costs and burdens workers and entrepreneurs face when obtaining or staying current with their licenses. Taken together, the findings of the CLIMB Task Force and HB5576 aim to give the General Assembly a more complete picture of how each license works in Illinois before legislators vote on new or existing licenses.