Unpaid internships ripped, remain
Employers abuse them as source of free labor, critics say
Before the summer of her sophomore year, a college student faced a decision: She could take an unpaid internship at a nonprofit, a paid internship at a think tank, or an internship at an investment bank paying more than twice as much.
The student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about her work, chose the bank, which she said she sometimes feels bad about. But it wasn’t much of a choice at all. While the nonprofit, her clear preference, does “amazing work,” the 21-year-old said, the position was in Washington, D.C., one of the most expensive cities in the country, and for a low-income, first-generation college student and immigrant, it was impossible. “I would not have survived,” she said.
Unpaid internships have been normalized in many places around the world, but they have also long been criticized, with opponents arguing that they exploit young workers and discriminate against those who lack the financial means to support themselves without pay. For years, advocates for paying interns have circulated petitions, started organizations, made statements. Interns themselves have taken to the streets in protest. Some have even sued for pay.
Recent increases in the cost of living around the world have sparked concern over the issue yet again. The European Parliament last week voted in favor of a report that calls for banning unpaid internships that are not related to completion of academic work (the vote is not legally binding but marks a significant step, rights groups say). In Malay
sia, a student drew attention on social media for protesting the internships, often unpaid, required for her degree.
In some places, such efforts have been successful. France banned nonacademic, “open market” internships in 2014 and requires any interns who work two months or more to be paid. Anne Hewitt, a law professor at the University of Adelaide who studies rights of nontraditional workers, said “most jurisdictions have not developed a coherent approach to internships” and called France’s approach the most “systematic” she’s seen.
But, by and large, unpaid internships persist: at the United Nations, in U.S. congressional offices, at prominent publications, museums and elsewhere. The White House only started paying interns last year. According to data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 47% of interns in the United States in 2022 were unpaid.
The debate is multifaceted, with some people differentiating between internships for academic credit and open-market internships. The European Youth Forum, for instance, fights specifically against the latter, which it says are “replacing entry level jobs and exclude many young people from specific career paths.”
Mark McNulty, a forum board member, attributes the proliferation of unpaid internships to tough financial times when companies need ways to grow without paying new staff. “In times of financial crisis, the job market tilts against young people who are expected to absorb the shocks of each crisis before even being able to get their foot out the door.”
“Despite it being a universal right that work must pay, employers know that young people are anxious to land their first job, and they are willing to exploit this,” he said.
Matthew Hora, founding director of the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that he “wholeheartedly” endorses a ban on unpaid internships and associated training programs, but he isn’t optimistic that they are going away anytime soon. Some disciplines, such as social work, make them mandatory for graduation; employers in some fields, such as the arts, have limited resources; and others, he said, pointing to government, seem to “ignore the unethical nature of free labor.”
“Labor should be compensated — period — but especially for students who are too often juggling other responsibilities, struggling to make ends meet and in many cases vastly under-resourced,” he said.
The legal questions around unpaid internships can also leave room for misinterpretation, potentially contributing to their proliferation.
“I’ve run into people who have figured they could just bring someone on as an intern and not have to pay them because they’re a student,” said Thomas Lenz, a labor and employment attorney and University of Southern California professor. Though laws vary by state, the fundamental question in the United States is whether the intern or the company is the primary beneficiary of the opportunity. “You don’t want an organization gaining value from the labor of someone without paying them,” he said.
Lenz believes there is a place for these internships when they are educational. “It’s really like giving back to the community if you do it right,” he said.
But the National Association of Colleges and Employers says in a statement that U.S. standards require employers to “exercise broad discretion and judgment” when deciding whether interns should be paid, meaning “mistakes can and will be made, or more troubling, employers will intentionally classify an individual as an unpaid intern simply to save money.”
Meanwhile, for the interns, there can be a steep cost. A study from the European Youth Forum found that for an unpaid intern maintaining a “ramen noodles only” budget, it would still cost about $1,130 per month on average to make an unpaid internship work. For many, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds, such a cost is not feasible.
The experience can also be demoralizing. Ryan Arsenault, who was an unpaid intern at a TV station in central New York, said he would sometimes walk home from his internship on nonpedestrian-friendly roads because he couldn’t afford transportation. Sure, he gained experience, he said. “But I think that sometimes that is used as a cover for the fact that they’re not paying you and you’re doing a lot of work.”
“Labor should be compensated — period — but especially for students who are too often juggling other responsibilities, struggling to make ends meet and in many cases vastly under-resourced,” — Matthew Hora, director of the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison