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Charities in this context are defined as organizations recognized as 501c3 nonprofit organizations under the Internal Revenue Code. ↑
The State Occupational Licensing Index reports both “barrier scores” and “licensing scores.” A barrier score measures licensing barriers to occupations, whether these barriers are specific to the occupations or not. For example, acupuncturists in Alabama must have a physician’s license but there is no specific acupuncturist license in that state. Therefore, their barrier score would account for this license while their licensing score would not. For our purposes, we use the barrier score. ↑
This formula, common in the construction of indices essentially grades every state on a curve. The numerator measures the degree to which that state’s value exceeds the minimum value. The denominator calculates the whole range of values across all states. So as a whole it tells us how each state performs, relative to the possible range of performances. In multiplying the value by 10 we set this on a 10-point scale. In future years, we will use this year’s and values. This will allow us to see how states change over time. ↑
Note that here the numerator subtracts each state’s value from the maximum value. That is because higher fees correspond to steeper barriers to entry, which should result in a lower score. ↑