Obama’s War on College Students and Internships

One of the best ways for college students and grads to gain some real work experience at top notch companies is via internship programs. The Obama administration thinks otherwise and has launched a War on Interns making it illegal to work for free.

The labor market is still in recession, but for younger workers it feels more like a depression. In the last year, the unemployment rate among workers age 20 to 24 has risen to almost 16%, and among teenagers to 26%.

You might therefore expect a federal effort to encourage employers to give unskilled youngsters a chance. You would be wrong. The feds have instead decided to launch a campaign to crack down on unpaid internships that regulators claim violate minimum-wage laws.

How all of this helps young people who are trying to develop marketable skills is a mystery. While the Department of Labor may insist the world owes these kids a living, the truth is that many young workers are willing to trade free labor for a chance to demonstrate their skills and build a resume for the next job. Especially in a bad labor market, the choice college students face may be to work without pay, or hang by the beach.

Intern Scandal?

Please consider the Christian Science Monitor opinion on The real intern scandal: working without pay privileges the privileged

Internships are becoming a joke. Once a coveted form of apprenticeship, they’re now a cynical way for companies to trim labor costs.

During this great recession, more and more students and young people are accepting unpaid internships because there simply aren’t paying gigs available.

Some employers are taking advantage of this, deceiving young people and offering shallow experiences that won’t actually help them develop professional skills.

Now the Obama administration wants to crack down on these abusive practices.

“If you’re a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren’t going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law,” a Labor Department official told The New York Times this week.

Such accountability is welcome, but there’s a deeper issue at stake: the way internships today privilege the privileged.

It seems the more competitive the field, the higher the entry fee. Aspiring lawyers and doctors who weren’t born into wealth are cornered into immense debt situations, making the idea of pro bono work unrealistic to many even if that’s why they started