Unintended Consequences: The Govt Response To The Nail Salon Exposé
William McGurn makes some good points in the WSJ about the "two-part exposé in the New York Times, one focusing on the lousy pay and the other on the health threats" and the leap to action by politicians to regulate change:

Like so many other bursts of progressive passion, chances are that while their bid for more government will make the pols and activists feel better about themselves, it will do little to improve the lives of these women.

That's because most of what they propose does nothing to resolve the fundamental issues the Times rightly identifies as making these women workers vulnerable to abusive bosses: They don't speak English, they don't have skills, and about a quarter of them are here illegally. All this greatly limits their job opportunities.

To put it another way, will a crackdown on licensing really help women who will need to complete the 250 hours of study for a New York state license? What about closing down the salon of a rotten employer because he doesn't pay the women sick leave?

In a 2001 column, no less than Paul Krugman noted a similar case of good intentions that had terrible unintended consequences, citing a bill proposed in the 1990s by Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa) to outlaw child labor in products made overseas. The threat of the legislation succeeded in the sense that some companies in Bangladesh stopped hiring children.

But Mr. Krugman noted that follow-up research by Oxfam found that the displaced child workers ended up in even worse jobs, or on the streets--and that a significant number were forced into prostitution.