The Crusade of the Unpaid Internship

Thousands of United States undergraduate students apply for summer internships every year. The number of internships across the country is split nearly evenly between paid and unpaid opportunities. Undergraduate juniors and seniors tend to take the majority of paid internships while freshmen, sophomores, and a small amount of high school students generally account for a large amount of the unpaid internships. 

M. Patricia Smith, the Obama administration’s top law enforcement officer at the Labor Department, has made it a goal to target companies that give students unpaid internships. Smith claims that internships in the United States are “rife with abusive practices and that serious violations of labor law are widespread.” Her solution to this fantasy problem is simple: abolish all unpaid internships and replace them with jobs that at the very least pay minimum wage. 

Unpaid internships are crucial for students as well as those who are simply looking for employment in a certain field. They provide valuable training and hands on experience in a certain field so that one may test whether or not a certain industry is right for them. Internships also allow individuals with a budding career to form contacts and connections within a certain field. There is no question that internships, paid or unpaid, are an important staple in the development of the careers of several students in the United States.

Simple economics shows us that as cost increases, demand decreases. Internship demand is no exception to this timeless rule. Interns are valuable to a company only in the sense that they perform tasks that would otherwise be done by employees who are paid and trained to work at a different level. The average summer intern works with a company for 2-3 months. With such a short amount of time, employers cannot afford to put their interns through training. It is obvious that interns, who are generally untrained, are not of much value to companies. If students were actually benefiting companies more than it costs to train them, companies would pay them without regulation. 

Government regulation of unpaid internships would inevitably lead to an overall decrease in internships available. This is not the first time M. Patricia Smith has called for such measures to be taken in the name of equality. While serving as Commissioner of New York State Labor Department, Ms. Smith launched program called “Wage and Hour Watch.”  In this program, community organizations and unions were trained by the State Labor Department in wage and hour laws. They were then issued state identification cards, and sent to local businesses. Their task was to infiltrate their assigned businesses to investigate and report suspected violations. 

Since her nomination to Solicitor of Labor at the U.S. Department of Labor by President Obama, Patricia Smith has refused to answer questions related to the controversial program which authorized unlawful identity fraud. Despite being asked to remove the nomination, President Obama allowed his fellow community organizer to take her place as the top labor law enforcer in the country. 

Statements from the administration’s mouthpiece, Robert Gibbs, indicate that the administration is taking such regulations into serious consideration. According to Gibbs, one of the main problems is that unpaid internships disadvantage students who may not be able to afford to spend their summers at unpaid jobs. What is the solution? Of course, let’s just eliminate unpaid internships altogether.