Mobility Passport

Mission Alignment

Interstate licensing compacts already prove portable, multi-state recognition is achievable: the enhanced Nurse Licensure Compact covers 26 states and the Physical Therapy Compact covers 11 (Institute for Justice). What's missing isn't proof of concept — it's a way for an individual worker to actually see, before a move, which of their credentials transfer and which don't, and to carry their benefits enrollment with them instead of starting over at every new employer. This solution builds the usable layer on top of policy work that's already real but fragmented and largely invisible to the worker it's meant to help.

Problem Statement

Roughly 25% of US workers require a government-issued license to work, and licensing is fragmented at the state level with limited reciprocity — a license earned in one state frequently doesn't transfer to another, even for occupations that don't plausibly require state-specific competency. Employer-tied health insurance compounds the same mobility tax: switching jobs, especially across state lines, can mean losing coverage entirely rather than carrying it forward.

Prior Research Findings

• Roughly 25% of US workers require a government-issued license to work, fragmented at the state level with limited interstate reciprocity (Institute for Justice; NCSL).
• At least 29 states enacted licensing-related reform bills in the 2023–2024 legislative cycle, and interstate compacts like the enhanced Nurse Licensure Compact (26 states) and Physical Therapy Compact (11 states) prove portable multi-state recognition is achievable when there's institutional will (Institute for Justice).
• Employer-tied health insurance is a specifically American institutional choice most peer economies don't share, and it measurably suppresses voluntary job-switching — which in turn suppresses the backfill vacancies that switching would otherwise create (structural job-lock literature; flagged in the underlying research as warranting an updated citation search at drafting time).

Scope Boundary

In Scope

• A reciprocity tracker mapping a worker's licenses and certifications against every state's actual current reciprocity rules
• A portable benefits wallet compatible with existing portable-benefits pilot programs
• A standardized advocacy kit sector groups can use to petition for new interstate compacts

Out of Scope

• Rewriting state licensing law or health insurance regulation directly — this is infrastructure that makes existing and future reciprocity compacts usable, not a substitute for the underlying policy work
• Employer-side benefits administration, which remains the employer's system of record; this wallet is a portability layer on top of it

Product Components

Reciprocity Tracker

• Maps a worker's licenses and certifications against every state's current reciprocity rules, so mobility cost is visible before a move rather than discovered after
• Starts with high-volume licensed occupations already partially covered by existing compacts, to launch on proven ground

Portable Benefits Wallet

• Single enrollment point compatible with existing portable-benefits pilot programs, so switching employers doesn't mean re-enrolling from scratch

Compact Advocacy Kit

• Standardized policy-and-data package sector groups can use to petition for new interstate compacts, modeled on the Nurse Licensure Compact and Physical Therapy Compact precedents

Phased Milestones

1. MVP: reciprocity tracker for three high-volume licensed occupations, including at least one already covered by an existing compact
2. V1: portable benefits wallet integrated with at least one existing portable-benefits pilot program
3. V2: expand tracker coverage to 10+ occupations
4. V3: first new interstate compact advocacy campaign launched using the standardized kit

Open Research Questions

• How current can a crowd-sourced-plus-verified reciprocity database realistically stay, given how frequently state licensing rules change?
• Does bundling benefits portability and licensing reciprocity into a single wallet increase adoption, or does it just make the product harder to explain and slower to build than shipping them separately?

Success Metrics

• Number of workers using the reciprocity tracker before an actual interstate move
• At least one new interstate compact campaign that can point to the advocacy kit as a contributing factor