Ban the unpaid internship

Nice op-ed in NYT on Take This Internship and Shove It.

Instead of starting out in the mailroom for a pittance, this generation reports for business upstairs without pay. A national survey by Vault, a career information Web site, found that 84 percent of college students in April planned to complete at least one internship before graduating. Also according to Vault, about half of all internships are unpaid.

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What if the growth of unpaid internships is bad for the labor market and for individual careers?
Let's look at the risks to the lowly intern. First there are opportunity costs. Lost wages and living expenses are significant considerations for the two-thirds of students who need loans to get through college. Since many internships are done for credit and some even cost money for the privilege of placement overseas or on Capitol Hill, those students who must borrow to pay tuition are going further into debt for internships.

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How are twentysomethings ever going to win back health benefits and pension plans when they learn to be grateful to work for nothing?

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In this way, unpaid interns are like illegal immigrants. They create an oversupply of people willing to work for low wages, or in the case of interns, literally nothing. Moreover, a recent survey by Britain's National Union of Journalists found that an influx of unpaid graduates kept wages down and patched up the gaps left by job cuts.

I've always been amazed that the unpaid congressional internship, clearly discriminatory and elitist, has escaped greater scrutiny. I say ban 'em.

Kids whose parents can subsidize their summer in DC get a leg up on kids who have to work. I can understand the Republicans doing this, but the Dems? The party of equal opportunity?

One of our leaders should introduce a bill to ban unpaid internship in Congress and federal agencies. Call it the "Equal Opportunity in Educational Internships Act." The taxpayer can surely afford the pittance it would take to pay interns. And while we're at it, how about a living wage law for congressional staff?

I've always thought it abhorrent that MOCs pay staff assistants $24K while the COS might make $120K. Again, maybe in a Republican office, but the Dems should realize that paying entry level staff shit and having unpaid (generally white upper-middle class interns) betrays the party's message as the the part of the equal opportunity.

I can understand non-profits might not be able to pay interns -- so it goes -- but government positions should be different.