The president and vice president paid their interns. There was a news release from the White House. We should have stood up and cheered.
Collective embarrassment should be the correct response to the fact that this job has been without pay for so long.
Millions of college students work for money during the summer because their financial aid office tells them to. White House interns from previous administrations are often rich and well connected by the end of the summer season.
The problem is obvious. When I found out that I would be working for free after my internship at Chicago magazine, it clicked in for me.
The meeting took a turn when I asked what financial aid recipients like me were supposed to do to make enough money to pay for school. The offer was not for me.
The White House says we are now arriving at a major milestone. Who is responsible for what didn't happen in the years in between?
Unpaid internship are American in many ways. The baseline expectation is to be paid for work you do rather than your dues. Ross Perlin, author of " Intern Nation", put it to me in an email this week that the pressure to gain experience in an "ever more competitive economy with just a few winners" came after.
We've finally got lawsuits. The internship program at Condé Nast was shut down after former interns filed a lawsuit. A suit by former interns who worked on films for Fox was settled after a federal appeals court ruled that interns aren't entitled to payment under federal and state minimum wage laws.
Few teenagers will have the nerve to test it in court. It becomes part of the public record when you push hard in a lawsuit. You will see lawsuits on the first page of your search results if you ever get a job.
The Department of Labor has a seven-part test that can be used to determine if an internship is a job for which compensation is necessary. Whether training is similar to what interns might get in a classroom and whether their work complement, rather than displaces, the work of paid employees is also included. Unpaid internships for public sector and nonprofit charitable organizations are generally permissible, according to the memo.
According to the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about one million interns are put to work every year.
According to a survey from the center, 67 percent of the students who aren't interns would like to be. Having an existing job and not being able to afford the low wages were two reasons respondents checked off when they reported obstacles to taking an internship.
According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, interns make an average of $20.76 an hour, so giving them that would make it easier for them to find a job. What would make employers pay everyone?
President Biden could issue an executive order to end internships in the government. The White House representatives didn't respond to several messages asking why he didn't.
In June of last year, Mr. Biden ordered agencies to increase paid internships. It was a start and likely won't last long. Budgetary practicalities are one thing. Money for the interns is coming from new legislation.
The State Department has internship programs that are open for now. Unless you have a home in the United States, you could be on the hook for travel and living costs. The financial aid department plans to only offer paid spots starting next year.
Gatekeepers could help reduce the number of uncompensated positions. There is no reason for college or university career counseling offices to refuse to post internship listings or forbid employers from not paying interns.
Carlos Mark Vera, co- founder and executive director of Pay Our Interns, an advocacy organization that lobbies the White House to make its change, said that higher education has been complicit.
There is an issue of schools giving course credit for internship.
David C. Yamada is a professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston and an expert on internship rules. Even as students are working out in the world and don't need classroom space or an instructor standing in front of it, intern-for-credit programs can allow institutions to collect tuition.
It allows a school to say it provides valuable career preparation. He said he would scream if another university used the phrase "hit the ground running".
Handshake is the company with the most power here. More than 650,000 employers have used it to reach students for both internship and entry level jobs since it was founded nine years ago. If the company refused to post openings for interns, it would cut off the supply of ready labor for employers who wanted to hire students without paying. Handshake declined to throw down the gauntlet.
Many of the right things are being said and done. Jonathan Stull, its chief operating officer, told me in an email that the company discourages interns on Handshake because they often make it harder for young people to find work.
On Handshake, they are not the norm. 75 percent of the internship listings have been paid this year. Almost all of the internships that are posted are paid. According to Handshake, paid internship postings attract more applicants to jobs than free ones.
Someone is not listening to the company. The three worst fields are non government organizations, politics and movies.
32% of Handshake's internship listings are paid in journalism, media and publishing. It's a terrible thing. In the New York Times newsroom, interns and fellows are paid, as well as getting benefits. Research assistants are what my old friends at Chicago magazine now call them.
It's important to fix all of this because of the power issues. Teenagers don't have much and need internship to get ahead There are a lot of things that work for schools. Users would be sent to Indeed.com if Handshake decided to lose some listings. Federal and state governments are slow.
Sometimes a bright light can work. Condé Nast started a paid fellowship program after the lawsuit was settled.
Last year, when concerned employees were forcing the company to have more conversations about equity and inclusion, it restarts its internship program. The group was made up of many different types of interns.
The company is making a payment.
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