COMMENTARY: Nevada could attract professionals by cutting licensing red tape

Nevada has a nursing shortage. This presents a serious challenge to patients seeking access to care and health care providers properly staffing facilities.

Unfortunately, Nevada policymakers seem to be laser-focused on taking the wrong approach to fixing the problem.

Mandating nurse staffing ratios certainly will not help. Nevada already doesn’t have enough nurses to fill current vacancies. Forcing employers to hire nurses who are not even part of the labor force is silly.

The Nurse Licensure Compact — which allows nurses to in states that participate to have a multistate license — appears to be a viable solution. But when we dig into the research on its effects and consider existing policy in Nevada, we think there is a much better approach.

Research, at best, is mixed with respect to how the Nurse Licensure Compact affects nurse mobility. One study finds no evidence that the compact improved mobility, even when focusing on workers in border counties. Another study finds some evidence of increases in mobility, but it is a bit more limited in its scope.

Scholarly evidence aside, compacts in 2025 are outdated. Compacts address one occupation at a time. Nevada, in general, has a skilled worker shortage. Will Nevada seek to pass a compact for every licensed occupation?

If so, businesses and consumers will be waiting a very long time. The Nevada Legislature has been grappling with the Nurse Licensure Compact for more than 15 years.

Compacts are also expensive, requiring member states to provide valuable resources to maintaining commissions, committees and bureaucracy. They also often waste taxpayer resources, relying on federal funds to get started or become operational.

There is a better approach, and all Nevada has to do is look next door. Six years ago, Arizona passed one of the most significant labor market reforms in decades. It’s called “universal recognition.”

Here is how universal recognition works: If a worker holds a license in good standing in Nevada, the license will be accepted in Arizona. It is that simple.

There is no need to enter into a national agreement and abide by bureaucratic rules and regulations. And there is no expense for the taxpayer.

We wrote a paper estimating the effect of universal recognition on mobility and labor market outcomes. We estimated that, among affected licensed workers, mobility increases by 48 percent relative to their peers. According to our research, employment also increases by nearly a full percentage point. Nationally, universal recognition has created more than 60,000 jobs.

In Nevada, there has been a version of this reform on the books since 2017. The problem is that it allows licensing boards to retain too much power in deciding who can and cannot use it. With a slight tweak, this existing model could be vastly improved and help lower the burden that licensed professionals encounter when they relocate to Nevada.

Today, there are 18 states, like Arizona, that trust the judgment of other licensing boards and accept licenses from other states without unnecessary licensing board dithering. Essentially, occupational licenses function more like driver’s licenses.

Will this reform compromise the safety of Nevada citizens? No. These are licensed professionals with credentials in good standing. It is telling that no single state has ever reversed or weakened its universal recognition reform. Instead, states are turning to universal recognition to attract and retain top talent.

If Nevada policymakers are serious about attracting skilled workers, they should stop wasting valuable time on silly compacts and mandates. Instead, slight but subtle tweaks to existing policy will go a long way for a state in dire need of new workers actually attracting them.

Edward Timmons is a senior research fellow with the Archbridge Institute. Kihwan Bae is a research associate at the Knee Regulatory Research Center.