The Government's War on Interns 

I got a dunn lumber recruiting ad. How'd they know I have experience handling wood?

@@ammoiscurrency5706 oh you're a very well known wood worker in the office

Self-eating zombies are always full.

Don't forgot to carve out an exception to ourselves! #CongressCronys

Why stop at just $100? Make it $1,000,000,000\hour and then everyone can be super wealthy just like that! Yay, left-wingers.

Please, please let this be a troll, I'd hate to think there are actually people out there THIS economically illiterate.

Oh thank god

Yep college is definatly illogical. You could do 4 years of unpaid internships and have more work experience and less debt.

I know its a year old but i feel this comment needs more love.

Its because of risk. If you successfully complete the 4 years and pay the 10s of thousands of dollars (or just thousands of dollars if you went to a junior college then finished at an state public university), then they have to teach you what you signed up to learn, and give you a piece of paper that says that you learned it. If you do the free temporary job, then they don't need to teach you anything, or give you any kind of sign of knowledge and skill, even if you do everything right. Or, the temporary job might teach you skills that only that particular organization actually needs. So then you can only work for them. College degrees are valuable at most work places for some reason.

@@Sewblon >then they have to teach you what you signed up to learn Hahahaha have you been to colleges recently? Also they can expell you and not reimburse your tuition. >If you do the free temporary job, then they don't need to teach you anything Except they do. Why would they need unqualified oaf in their office? They teach you skills that enable you to be useful to them. >the temporary job might teach you skills that only that particular organization actually needs That's bullcrap. If this particular organisation is in bussiness, they have competitors, unless it's a government enforced monopoly. Also skills are transferable to other areas.

Should be able to trade on the job training for labor.

That's legitimate depending on the work being offered . Nobody gets what they are worth they get what they negotiate . In my case I worked one job nearly full-time to pay the bills and about 30 additional hours a week to get skills . That was worthwhile. I made sure that they understood that they had to be giving me meaningful tasks or it wouldn't be worth my time to be there . Sometimes people would try to shove off jobs like copying all day to me and the supervisors who arranged my internship with me what actually take up for me and be like no he's putting his time here to learn something not just make your copies for you . Not that I wouldn't copy now and then too but I wasn't gonna show up and volunteer my time to not learn anything. have some backbone .

And this IMO is the primary issue with unpaid internships. If you had wealthy parents you might take a lucrative unpaid internship because you could afford such a choice. But very few people have that option. So if unpaid internships are the employment pipeline for important industries like news media for example, you will end up with a fourth estate made up of upper middle class people from virtually identical backgrounds. I don't think it's as important in other fields with a less significant societal impact necessarily, but I do think there is good reason, beyond mere labour rights concerns, to prohibit unpaid internships.

I just think that they damn well expect you to be present for work if they are paying you so then you should be able to say "if I'm present and working then I damn well better be paid".

he was also paid working as apprentice if only food and shelter intern do not even get food and shelter

I agree. There's no incentive for companies to train interns. They are just free labor. There are tons of jobs going unfilled. This sort of propaganda is just an attempt to push down the wages of those who end up filling them. Real wages are the same today as they were in the 1970s despite huge increases in worker productivity. It's not the rich employers who are going bankrupt.

@@jwrosenbury Ok, you're wrong. "Real wages are the same today as they were in the 1970s despite huge increases in worker productivity" Few issues with this. Firstly, I know the statistic you're using. The issue with it is that there are around 5 ways to record inflation and 2 or 3 of them say wages have increased. The issue with the cpi is that it doesn't take into account increase in quality. Increases in price should only be recorded because of a devalued currency or if there's not enough supply. For example let's say a phone in the 1970s cost 100 dollars. Now a modern phone today cost 150 dollars. I know that's way too low but I'm just keeping it simple. The cpi would say phones went up in cost by 50 percent so the inflation rate for phones over that period was 50 percent. What this completely ignores is that phones are far better than they were in the 1970s. Phones can be used as phones, cameras, calculator, dictionaries and many other things you would've had to pay for in the 1970s. If phones today were recorded not just as phones but as cameras, calculators and other products as well the cost of phones have gone down. Secondly, there have been huge increased in worker productivity but not because of workers working harder. There have been huge increases in productivity due to capital investment. Automation has let work achieve far more in a shorter period of time. Back in 1980 it took a worker 10 hours to make a ton of steel. Today it takes around 1 and a half hours. Workers have become 6.6 times more productive but you wouldn't say they're the reason for all the extra productivity. Thirdly, even if you were right about inflation there is a big issue with saying adjusted for inflation workers income is the same as it was 50 years ago so workers income has been stagnant. This is because you're not taking into account people move up and down the income ladder. The majority of people who were workers 50 years ago would have earned much more in real wages in the decades after 1970.

@@cheesemccheese5780 First, you don't understand the fundamentals of economics. Second, you are making unstated value judgements from a rich person's perspective, probably not even realizing it. Fundamentally, economics is the system by which a culture generates and distributes goods and services. Thus, increases in utility are relative. Arguing that I'm better off because my phone is better might apply if modern phones weren't so important that economic life depends on them. There's a reason the government distributes free phones to the poor. They are a necessity to modern life. This also diminishes the effectiveness of your "it's all capital improvement" argument for worker productivity. So what? Workers are still producing more. Then there's the CPI or whatever method you use to measure inflation. People need to eat. They need to get to work. They need a roof over their heads. It doesn't matter if the eggs come in dayglo colors or merry-go-round horses pick us up each day to whisk us to work. Food is still food. Bells and whistles aren't nearly as relevant as you seem to think. Then there's the matter of undisclosed/unconsidered moral judgements. You assume capital improvement means that the wealthy deserve more, beyond a reasonable return on investment. Much (most?) of the capital investment was made decades ago and has already paid off. Many people feel the rich don't deserve to rule simply because their ancestors bought a steel factory. The majority of workers don't move up the income scale as they age. Some do, many don't. I need merely walk into my local Walmart to see people working into their 70s for minimum wage. These people are not lazy as so many rich people assume. They've worked multiple jobs for decades serving the rich, keeping the economy going. Sure they aren't as smart or vicious as some, but discarding is seen as morally depraved by most people. I remember making good money early in my life. Then my employer fired me and went bankrupt because he paid me too much. Then I spent years working harder and harder for less and less. I worked my way through college and got a degree. I then went on to earn minimum wage until I "knew a guy". Finally, I could earn real money while slacking. But I wasn't any smarter than when I was younger, quite the opposite. But I was less moral. (Nothing too bad, just taking the government's money instead of having a real job.) So many capitalists come to see Capitalism as somehow moral or just. It is not. Nor is Socialism. They are economic systems, not ethical ones. Capitalism works best in some situations. Socialism works best in some. Even then, no economic system is inherently just. They all promote bastards to leadership positions. And under a capitalist system, employers would be insane to not take advantage of free labor as provided by interns. But that doesn't make it right. Nor should it be legal.

Yeah but its not slavery, the interns can just leave if they don't like it or they're not getting trained, the companies that treat their interns well will end up with all the interns and the places that don't will end up with none, or at least none for very long.

If only there was some sort of organisation that would give employees the power to stand up to the company they’re working for. While also not being lobbying parasites.

That's a great way of saying, that the smaller businesses have a great opportunity to hire qualified people who do not come from "higher circles".

Because Clint is accepting a wage that reflects the value he is bringing to Reason: zero. However, there is still an exchange of value, with Reason providing labor in the form of guidance and correction of mistakes and Clint providing labor in the form of putting mostly correct words into the teleprompter. As it turns out, the labor on both sides of the equation is roughly equal in value, which is why there is not a monetary component thrown on top.

SHUT UP!!

Then don't do just work for experience.

You cant pay rent with education as well.

Sometimes jobs wont hire u unless u have expirence

Late reply, I know, but... Apprenticeships never left for the skilled trades and makes a lot of sense there. I think the current system actually benefits college students more, as an apprenticeship is a year-round commitment that would make it impossible to be totally focused on studies during the school year. College w/apprenticeship would likely last 5 or 6 years. Even if the apprenticeship gave a bit of pocket change, it is best for students to just get on with it and graduate as quickly as possible.

Ashley ASHLEYM no one should have to work for free to get expiernce

Bruce Nadeau well then you could always go to school or take a bad job for awhile but most likely you will not get a good job with no experience it just, doesn’t add up. There is nothing wrong with working hard for future benefits

It's not an exploit if you got a choice.

They are completely voluntary, and if they become illegal, they won't pay all their interns, they'll just fire them.

Jesse Ward it is not a choice if it is the only way they get a job

mmzen i know your comment is over a year old, but what do you mean?

Paying interns a few bucks an hour is very illegal

Technoguy3 So how are restaurant employees paid that much?

Because the law makes exceptions for workers who get tips

Abolish the minimum wage and employers would pay interns.

They're not even guaranteed tips. That prohibition era law needs to go away

The_Blazer If companies really could pay everyone as little as possible everyone would be making minimum wage. Since that is so obviously not true, you must be wrong.

I said companies will do it if it's possible, not that they always can. But when they can, they do, and that should be avoided when possible. It's because thankfully there are sectors of the labor market who will not work for wages that are too low. Try paying an engineer min. wage, he won't work for you because there's competition that will give him more money; the higher wage doesn't happen because the company feels fair and humanitarian, it happens because they're being forced by labor market forces (pun not intended) to pay higher. But for jobs where this doesn't happen people ARE indeed paid minimum wage, and every sector of the workforce that is weaker and doesn't have as much bargaining power as an engineer or similar positions will be exploited to shit, because the companies can. If you think the aim of a company, in general, is anything but making the highest possible profits by spending as little as possible (which includes underpaying workers), you are delusional.

If they underpay their workers why dont the workers quit? Or find someplace that pays them more? Or strike until there are fairer wages? The minimum wage only hurts low income workers and low experience workers.

If they deregulated interns companies would probably pay $4 an hour for "interns" because they are helpful. The regulations actually force the company to pay less for an intern then they would naturally.

What's the problem with that? An "intern" works for experience and would get hands on knowledge in a field they choose to intern for. With enough knowledge in that field they can in turn ask for full time employment where they interned or somewhere else with their experience. And if they were able to pay interns a lot more people would probably sign up for internships. Why do you think interns shouldn't be payed at all?

M240Bandit you have freedom to associate all you want you do not have the freedom to steal from anyone else having someone work for you without pay is stealing thier labor

M240Bandit you did not say that i said it

Having someone work for you without pay is stealing their labor? Damn. Almost everybody's parents are going to jail. It is an abrogation of contract if it was understood that you would be paid before undertaking the job. If both parties voluntarily agree work will be done and there will be no payment for said work, where does theft enter into it? Is every lawyer who works pro bono a slave to their client or being stolen from?

David Grossenbacher it stealing because it is not voluntarily no work for free no job

How is it not voluntary?

Daniel Kalish but why?

Zach DeCook better than spending the summer doing nothing. plus it looks great on a resume 😀

Convince gov to let everyone have an acre of free tax free fertile land to grow a food forest on and live on. End farm subsidies. End tax breaks to farms exsept those who grow healthy vegan food for human consumption exsept no large mono crops. End mandatory school, ged and hsd requirements, age limits, minimum wage, and exsessive regs. People should be able to learn how to do a good job they want so they can afford a house and car before 18. For those who and whos parents cant afford it, tax deductible chairty and or the about 180,000dollars spent on k thru 12 per student could pay for it and trash k thru 12 and some of that money could be used to promote more independence and healthy living.

Those people have to work extra hard- on self control. Because it is really easy for them to slack off with everyone knowing it.

Why do you need to compete with that? Not everyone gets a Lamborghini or goes to Harvard? Does that bug you?

You suck it up and focus on improving yourself

bigcat56308 Then abolish the minimum wage so it would be legal to give compensation to interns.

There is nobody in America that can send a kid to college but can't afford to feed them. Move back in with your parents while you do your internship.

zdrux What if that's not an option? What if you only got to college due to scholarships?

Moving in with your parents not an option? Then sounds like you can't go to college; that's adult life for you. Make the best of the choices you DO have, not everybody in this world deserves everything at any cost.

Have you ever heard of working two jobs? I guess not. Only wealthy people wouldn't think of working more than one job.

"What did you do last summer?" 1) Interned at a firm. 2) Nothing. Which one would you hire?

watch Adam ruins everything interns

I hire engineers. Spoiler alert, it is the former.

the difference between interns and non interns when hired is 1 percent

Not in my industry. In fact, we offer jobs to almost all of our interns after they graduate.

Thats a bit extreme, dont you think? I doubt all unpaid internships end in that way :)

No. I'll fight for 15 girls, though.

"if employers want experience they should provide it" -- Ummmm...this is the heart of internships, experience before graduation.

Some careers are competitive enough that they don't really need to worry about that. Be thankful that they give back by providing unpaid internships, which can be a big pain in the ass for them.

It's not putting companies ahead of people. People have the freedom to participate in unpaid internships or to not participate.

M240Bandit if the company was going to pay them why not hire them as paid employees in first place

Jose S. A company is a group of people too

Skill and knowledge are two different things, they have knowledge but assuming they have no expiernce means they have no skill. So they're unskilled workers...

Ashley ASHLEYM Having been an intern and having hired a few, I respectfully disagree. They're well worth three times minimum wage

He doesn't need the exposure. You do.

yea that would only benefit you...

On average, how many people read any random article on your website? Mostly Weekly averages ~16k views per video (admittedly, the numbers may be skewed a bit; the most common range was actually 10k-12k but was bumped up a bit due to certain high view videos). Based on site polling, how many viewers of your site indicate a strong active interest in politics (and thus would be more likely to do more research on this guy and possibly watch his videos)? Unless the answer to the first one is several hundred thousand or the second one is 10K+, it wouldn't be to his benefit to help you. If your articles are read by a couple hundred people, however, you might want to check around for journalism students who are willing to write articles for free in order to say and prove that they have published articles when sending their resume to a bigger news organization. So, basically, unpaid interns. Its almost like an inexperienced student is in a different situation from a published author, producer, and show host.

Depends on the outsider, I love to argue and I like to have my views challenged......Thus there is little point in talking to either of those two. I think it a reasonable argument to call even engaging them at all is literally wasting your finite life. I have to see an obvious glimmer that I could pull a lemming away from the herd quickly otherwise I could care less that I offend them.

and he'd refuse, because freedom of association. no one is forcing people to take these internships