Unpaid Internships and Minimum Wages
With job openings scarce for young people, the number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor.
Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers.
Your first reaction to this story might be, “Well that’s just ridiculous: how can it make sense to prevent employers and interns from engaging in a mutually beneficial interaction?”
It does not. But that is exactly what minimum wages laws are meant to do: prevent a willing employer and employee from engaging in mutually beneficial interaction at a wage below the legal minimum.
So the logic of minimum wage laws implies that unpaid internships are a violation. One more reason to repeal such laws.
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puzzling
This is correct. Said another way, the compensation received by interns is in future dollars and opportunities; it’s not measured in immediate paid income.
Should charities also be required to pay minimum wages to volunteers?
Government also does harm by setting wage maximums. Government forces the compensation given to biological parents for “giving up” their children to zero. This intervention by government has serious consequences that are rarely debated.
This government policy stops a mother from receiving compensation even if she believes it is in both the interest of herself, her child, and the adoptive parents to relinquish her custody of the child.
As a result there will always be a shortage of children to adopt. Biological parents who would otherwise be incentivized to give up children they may not want have this incentive stripped away by government.
It is this government policy that has created a vicious and growing black market for children, and absurd tests by government (like tests on sexual orientation) on prospective adoptive parents.
Government policy limiting compensation in adoptions risks the lives of children, harms mothers, and denies children to willing, qualified parents.
These controls – be they minimum wages or maximum wages – are harmful and should be ended.
Billy
That is interesting considering that most internships with congressmen (federal and state) are unpaid. In fact, California, one of the states mentioned above, has a representative who tried to defend not paying her interns all the while supporting minimum wage legislation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pFC3LKMIQo
Daniel
Not only is this terrifying to me as a 1L trying to pick through this horrible intern market for the summer, but the way they want to implement the law is bizarre.
It is not that people are unpaid for their services, but rather what made it illegal is “the growing number of people unpaid for their services [paraphrased]. Well, what’s the law then?
There is none. It’s a political witch hunt.
Mimosa
Hey, youre the goto eepxrt. Thanks for hanging out here.
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Colorado
Billy is right about congressional interns. The government couldn’t run without all of the unpaid help. And they couldn’t get elected in the first place unless they supported the minimum wage. The only concept they are really clear on is- these laws don’t apply to us.
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