Barbershop owner Jerrae Lindsey has skills with scissors, but not because of state-mandated schooling. Long before his forced enrollment, he was learning on his own as a child in Des Moines, Iowa.
“When my friends were riding their bikes around the neighborhood, I was riding my bike to the barbershop,” he says.
Lindsey watched the professionals and gave himself his first haircuts. Then, he started practicing with siblings and friends. Word spread that he was good, and he became a neighborhood barber before reaching high school. At 14, he turned his family’s two-car garage into a barbershop with a television, surround sound stereo system, and magazines.
One local barber saw his work and offered him a job — sight unseen — until Lindsey showed up in person. “The guy saw that I was just a kid,” Lindsey recalls. “He thought I was an adult and told me I needed a license.”
This was Lindsey’s introduction to government gatekeeping in one of the nation’s most heavily regulated lower-income industries. All states and the District of Columbia make it illegal to barber without a license, which usually requires hundreds of classroom hours.
Barber school costs can top $20,000, not counting lost wages, travel and child care. Cosmetologists, skin care specialists, blow-dry stylists, makeup artists and manicurists face similar barriers. Yet, a new study from the Institute for Justice shows that forced schooling is unnecessary to keep consumers safe.
The report “Clean Cut” analyzes health inspection outcomes in neighboring states with vastly different regulatory regimes and finds no meaningful differences. Salons and barbershops are safe either way.
Until 2021, Connecticut allowed unlicensed manicuring. During that time, it had similar results as New York, which required 250 classroom hours for manicurists. Alabama, which requires 1,000 classroom hours for barbers, had similar results as Mississippi, which requires 1,500 classroom hours.
Industry associations claim that government-mandated schooling is necessary. Making the claim is easier than proving it. Real-world evidence undercuts the narrative.
Hawaii’s Office of the Auditor has looked broadly at barbering and cosmetology and concluded five times since 1980 that neither occupation needs licensing. Other studies, including one from the Institute for Justice and another from San José State University, have used online reviews as a proxy for service quality.
With or without onerous gatekeeping, safety standards and service quality remain high.
Lindsey knows why. He says customers would not return if they walked into a salon and saw dirty conditions. His business, Uncle Jay’s Barbering Company, would have to close its satellite branch in Iowa Falls and its flagship operation near Des Moines.
“If you’re a good shop owner, then one of the most important things you care about is the integrity of your brand,” he says. “So, you’re going to enforce those things.”
Of course, state-mandated schools teach more than safety, which Lindsey acknowledges. As an African-American barber, he grew up working with Black hair. Barbering and cosmetology programs typically cater to White clients, which exposed Lindsey to new styles. He says the instruction tends to be outdated, and graduates enter the workforce woefully unprepared.
Lindsey anticipates this and makes time to mentor his rookie hires. “We are having to do the teaching anyway,” he says. “If we let kids cut hair just with what they learn in school, they would ruin their career before they begin it.”
The solution is obvious, even if industry insiders want to pretend otherwise: States should eliminate or scale back on licensing. Government inspection programs, which already exist, could cover any gaps.
The restaurant industry already operates this way. Rather than licensing chefs, code enforcers police the places where people actually eat.
Lindsey supports something like this in Iowa. One proposal would cancel the licensing requirement for barbers who work under supervision at licensed shops. If the owner has credentials, this would suffice. Employees could then learn on the job, getting paid from Day One.
Immigrants, former inmates, career switchers, and people from lower-income households would all have easier paths to honest income. Many aspiring barbers and beauty professionals choose other occupations or work illegally because they cannot afford the entry fee.
Besides being unfair, the gatekeeping is counterproductive. Nobody should be too poor to work.