When I lived in Washington State, up to 25% of all employed workers were in fields that required a state license to work. That’s crazy. A dog groomer needs to be licensed. A person who braids another’s hair (for profit, doing extensive braids or corn rows) must be licensed.
Licensing is sold on the basis of ensuring public safety. But the primary is to constrain the supply of labor, often leading to higher pay for those in the field. Licenses limit competition.
In December 2025, the hourly pay of an airline pilot at a major airline is about $360 per hour, and they are authorized to fly up to 1,000 hours per year. Top pay for the most experienced is closer to $500/hour. Plus they get paid for other functions including training and re-certification, and receive profit sharing.
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The result is experienced pilots – licensed and unionized – and for which new entrants is highly restricted – earn $400,000 to $500,000 or more per year. Their salary has nothing to do with their specific job function – it has to do with using laws, regulations and rules to restrict the labor supply.
After the Colgan air disaster, Congress mandated new pilots have a minimum of 1,500 hours of flight experience (with some exceptions) before flying airline transports. The US is the only country that does this, and oddly enough, the pilots in the Colgan air disaster had more than those hours! Most countries put new pilots with 500+ hours into the right seat of many airliners. (Note – both Colgan pilots had well above the 1,500 hours – the Captain was ATP certified but the first officer was commercial rated, which was then legal. 1,500 hours are required to obtain the ATP license. Fatigue and bad training were considered major causes of the crash.)
This has constrained the supply of new pilots whose self-funded training can cost $100,000 or more, followed by years working as a low paid flight instructor (to build hours) and then possibly flying small cargo or scenic tourist flights before qualifying for an airline position.
Second, the airline union limits “regional” jet companies to planes with 76 passengers or less. This results in smaller airports having more expensive services. When Alaska hires Horizon to serve our local airport, Horizon can only fly small jets. If Alaska itself flew the flight (and they do one flight per day now), they can fly a larger Boeing 737 which with fewer trips, is environmentally better than flying multiple smaller planes.
The point of this is that if choosing careers today – pick one that requires a license as the license will limit your competition. That means choosing careers in health care, or as a licensed professional engineer, or as a licensed pilot, CPA or stockbroker.
Few careers offer the extreme pay of today’s airline pilots – which have managed to use licensing, unionization, and lobbying Congress for laws that lessen competitive pressures.
