"Hi, Mr. b_b, I am not old enough to legally work, but I would love to pick up balls on your golf course and clean carts and just hang around and learn about the golf business because I dream of owning my own course one day. Also, someone told me that 'The ability to make decisions for oneself is among the most important things that makes us human' and I decided that staying home and watching TV is a waste of time." "Scram, kid." Of course offering higher wages attracts higher quality workers. That's the whole point. You get what you pay for, and better-qualified workers will compete for richer compensation, pushing others out. I thought you were worried about "less well off workers"? "The chief practical negative of minimum wage is increased unemployment among the most vulnerable workers, who would most benefit from greater access to employment." The numbers have improved since the last time I checked, but the pattern is still the same: Compared to what? If you are saying one's future job prospects would increase more if one got a paid position instead of taking an internship, I think that's reasonable. If you are saying one's future job prospects would increase more if one remained unemployed, I doubt it. If an unemployed person has to choose between an unpaid internship and a similar but paid position, I don't think we need FLSA to nudge them in the right direction.were I running a business, I wouldn't personally offer unpaid internships
The evidence that I read seems to suggest that offering a low-to-fair wage for these jobs actually attracts higher quality, more diverse groups of candidates than unpaid positions
The number of unemployed youth was 2.8 million in July 2015, down from 3.4 million a year earlier. The youth unemployment rate was 12.2 percent in July 2015, 2.1 percentage points less than a year before. Among the major demographic groups, July unemployment rates were lower than the prior year for young men (12.7 percent), women (11.7 percent), whites (10.3 percent), blacks (20.7 percent), and Hispanics (12.7 percent). The youth jobless rate changed little for Asians (10.7 percent).
it appears that taking an unpaid internship often doesn't increase one's job prospects
If you are saying one's future job prospects would increase more if one remained unemployed, I doubt it. The only large survey I'm aware of (and I'm not an expert here by any stretch) indicates that there isn't a statistically significant difference in finding a job after college between those who have had unpaid internships and those with no work experience. This itself isn't an argument against not paying interns, but it is an argument to young people about not subjecting themselves to them. The potential caveat of that study is that they don't show the numbers by field. It could be that unpaid positions are more likely to be offered in field with high unemployment to being with, which supply and demand should dictate. In engineering, where I had my college internships, unpaid positions are unheard of. I got $14 an hour as an intern in 2004 at Dow Automotive, and my classmates told me I was getting fucked.Compared to what? If you are saying one's future job prospects would increase more if one got a paid position instead of taking an internship, I think that's reasonable.
Four months after that article appeared, the National Association of Colleges and Employers responded to "misapplication" of their survey conclusions, emphasizing that they only looked at intern-to-hire data prior to graduation, not after, and (as usual) more research and analysis were needed. In particular, they observed "that NACE does not have sufficient information about the individual students and their job searches to adequately explain" why the unpaid interns did not exhibit the same improvement in intern-to-hire statistics. The controls for gender, ethnicity, and academic major did not clear it up, and they do not know if "something distinctive about the places and kinds of jobs for which students with unpaid internships applied (e.g. not-for-profit vs. for profit organizations)" might explain the difference. There is a lot of variation in the places and kinds of jobs that offer unpaid internships, according to an informative report from Intern Bridge, another source for the Atlantic article. Some highlights: • Women are more likely to take unpaid internships (77%) "because they tend to be more involved in social justice, environmental, and social service issues." • Students with family income below $80,000 participated in unpaid internships at 46% compared to 40% for students with family income above $80,000. (While some complain that unpaid internships exploit the poor and give little benefit, others complain that only wealthy people can afford to consider them, so the experience and networking benefits of unpaid internships go to them.) • Unpaid internships are more common at non-profits (57% of internships unpaid) and government (48%), while for-profit companies have 34% internships unpaid. • Smaller firms have higher levels of unpaid internships (55% for those with fewer than 100 employees). The largest companies, with over 5000 employees, offered fewer than 20% of their internships as unpaid. • The largest proportions of unpaid internships were found in government (here stated as 54%), health (62%), non-profits (63%), and arts/entertainment/broadcasting (68%), while companies in the utilities, transportation and manufacturing sectors provide less than 17% of their internships unpaid. NACE concludes that "Unpaid internships can be legitimate, valuable extensions of classroom learning, if properly constructed." Thanks for keeping up with the conversation. I am not as clear on the value of unpaid internships as I may sound, arguing for their virtues. Maybe they are not that helpful. What I am unclear on is the confidence with which some people condemn voluntary working relationships that are not highly paid (in salary). You are one of very few people I have seen acknowledge the benefits that accrue to really desperate people who accept working conditions that most Americans would consider undignified and beneath them, and I think that is an important perspective to include in the it's-not-perfect-so-ban-it discussion.there isn't a statistically significant difference