The Government's War on Interns
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- Опубліковано 11 лис 2024
- Regulations are protecting interns right out of the job market. Host Andrew Heaton tackles unpaid labor in the latest Mostly Weekly
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It's intern season, but many aspiring students aren't able to get internships-because a lot of them are illegal. Federal law restricts companies from hiring unpaid interns if they're performing actual useful duties, which means it's harder for workers to get a foot in the door. In the latest Mostly Weekly Andrew Heaton proposes that consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want with and to each other, including unpaid internships. Legislation meant to stamp out exploitation is really just gutting opportunities because they fall short of a perceived ideal.
Hosted by Andrew Heaton.
Written by Sarah Rose Siskind with writing assistance from Andrew Heaton and David Fried.
Edited by Austin Bragg and Sarah Rose Siskind.
Produced by Meredith and Austin Bragg.
Theme Song: Frozen by Surfer Blood.
I got a job recruiting ad for the NSA on this video. That was the most passive aggressive way they could have told me I’m on a list.
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
I've actually done the 'pretend to be my old boss' trick. Worked a treat.
Why don't we just raise the min wage to $100/hr that way everyone can be rich #CongressLogic
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
temporary job+ $0/HR + work experience = unacceptable
BUT
4 years of time and effort -10s of thousands of dollars + no work experience = good?
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.
More Clint. Just sayin.
YOU AREN'T MY DAD!!
My response towards internship offers is:
1) there is no such thing as a free lunch
2) I have big boy/girl responsibilities such as bills and rent that I have take care of.
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".
How is it possible to that people are willing to work for free in given industries BUT the job market is all fine?
I'll be Andrew Heaton's unpaid intern!
This show is brilliant, keep it up Reason!
We had interns at our company, and we (at least I) tried to teach them everything I could, because they're not just working for free. They're paying for it (ok, let's be honest, most likely their parents or some bank is paying for it). So we showed them different parts of our operation, gave them stuff to do and tried to expose them to as much information as possible. If we had to pay them, we'd give them some simple task and say "do this all day"
The problem with unpaid internships is that to many companies have taken advantage of this. Running errands or going to Starbucks instead of learning the job
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.
My maternal grandfather learned his trade as a carpenter in an apprenticeship. He built the houses he lived in and built my paternal aunt's too. He made his living that way.
he was also paid working as apprentice if only food and shelter intern do not even get food and shelter
I look forward to these Heaton videos. Good material, excellent points, fun stuff. But he forgot the legal disclaimer... _No (or only one) intern was harmed in the making of this video._
I have worked in software development for a little over a decade and the idea of an unpaid internship is laughable in that case.
You had to give them a great offer on the spot or they were gone. I remember highering one less then productive intern, who I had to spend 60% of my day helping. That person spent the summer feeling under valued because they were only getting paid $25 an hour. While their friends at other companies were getting $50, pluss a $2,000 a month housing stipen, and the companies were taking them sky diving.
Though at the end of the day all those internships were just 3 month long job interviews, where the intern would be wooed into taking a below average salary position after college.
Get Andrew Heaton back on EconPop project, please.
an unpaid internship is about as rewarding as being friendzoned
"That's the bagpipes" hilarious
I miss this show. Come back Heaton!
Imo, internships, even unpaid, should be legal. You and I, and young adults entering the job market, should just use our discernment. Be willing to take something that pays little to nothing if you know the references, experience, and credentials will be worth it. But also know when someone is trying to take advantage of you. I highly recommend watching animator Andrei Terbea's videos on knowing what your experience and time are worth but also when to work for free.
Andrew Heaton makes me happy
I think the fundamental problem with unpaid internships is that they provide a huge advantage within some industries, and are almost exclusively available to the wealthy classes and virtually no one else. Nobody else can realistically afford to live in NYC or L.A or San Francisco without an income for 6-12 months. So then you end up with, especially in things like publishing, media, fashion, a staff of upper, upper middle class people because the pipeline virtually guarantees that outcome.
From a purely labour perspective I agree there's nothing wrong with someone doing an unpaid internship. But I think the advantage they provide to a specific class of people can actually be discriminatory. And even if that was tolerable, it's not tolerable to have a news media in particular that's totally dominated by the upper middle class because unpaid internships are the entry point into that field.
In the U.K they have a similar problem in politics in that there is a pipeline from Cambridge and Oxford into federal politics via unpaid internships in one of the world's most expensive cities. That's not the only factor of course, but it's one of them, and it's generally not healthy for society. So much so that I would say it's reasonable to address it through regulation.
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".
More Clint. He has a talent for comedy.
Shuld be able to trade training for labor. End minimum wage.
I went thru an apprenticeship. School + work ($/hr). I got pay increases as I completed more schooling and worked more hours.
I think most colleges should be abolished and apprenticeships put in their place.
Me: sees this video
Me: but Bill loves interns
Doesn’t government intervention in the right of consenting adults to form contracts with each other produce such good results!!
Good job, Clint
We used to call it slavery
And none of the interns i had on my resume held any weight for job interviews ( you got coffee for 2 years? Lol)
My freelance year that i could not verify completely held more weight.
Fuk internships. They are a waste of time on both sides of the isle.
Minimum wage really push the students out of the market and into unpaid internship. If companies don't have to pay for interns, they will treat them like a free commodity, not letting them do much real works and training as those things take effort from full time employees. If the government let the market decide the value for internship, the process becomes simple. Companies use wage as expectation to the student who will work to fulfil that expectation. Interns will work harder because they are paid and companies will teach them better because they are an asset now, not a free commodity. If there's a fear that minimum wage will destroy low skill labour employees standard of living, just create another class of contracts as internship that excludes those type of jobs to "protect" low wage labour. No minimum wage enforcement works in many countries, it helps employers and employees to be flexible and have better negotiation. Why can't people look beyond their personal interest to see the whole picture, everyone has their incentive and balancing it is the best way to advance our society.
I think two consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want with or to each other. Same. Carry on.
There is research that shows unpaid internships don't raise income or result in work later. i.e. effect is salient
andrew has a bottle of laphroaig sitting by the fireplace.
good man.
0:34 "FACK!"
SHUT UP!!
Just do a banking internship: avg salary in NY for the summer: 5,000$, and that's if you're mid-tier
My data science internship is paying nearly 7k per month
This channel is supposed to be Libertarian, it's supposed to represent private enterprise: so how hasn't Clint been fired?!
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.
I have met an employer who completely took advantage of the idea of unpaid interns. My husband applied for a vet tech job and had several years of experience both in a regular practice and am emergency practice. The guy hires him, he worked for a full 40-hour week and then when my husband talked to the office manager she told him he was an unpaid intern. I kid you not. He'd been doing all the work of a regular vet tech, even assisted in surgery. This guy also had a stipulation in their handbook that employees found to be discussing their salary or benefits would be terminated. My husband never went back, and warned others not to apply there or even take their pets there.
What was funny is this guy made a big deal out of him being a liberal, who "employs liberals." So he supports the politicians who put forward the laws he personally broke.
Can't pay rent with experience
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
why not just bring back aprenticeships?
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.
You know whats scary, Im a Clint and I act just like that.
I don't know how I'm going to be able to cat-burglar a solid network of high-achieving workaholic rich folk without getting caught if I can't stake them out using free internships to get key passes and passwords and pins and shit... this fucking sucks. I like working for free, it's the best way I can negotiate my value as a land-pirate. If people like me can't do that, bitcoin's going to take a dive! XD (This is just for entertainment purposes, it is not an admission of guilt.)
0:38 and 3:23.
Laphroaig, excellent choice sir
Ah I get this is why I can’t get internships
You forgot to mention that the unions have a gripe against internships
The Government's War on Interns
He does a surprisingly good sottish accent
poor Clint!
“You’re not my dad!!”
I mean if companies want offer unpaid internships I know I won't take them because I already have expiernce from a multitude of past paid internships. I know I have a leg up where a lot of other people don't and I think to level the playing field it is fair that others also get a chance at gaining expiernce and if they need an unpaid internship to do that then they should be able to.
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
Was that Devin in that stock photo?
Lol unpaid interns. I made $60k interning summers in college
If I don't have the freedom to exploit unpaid labor, do I really have any freedom?
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?
internships should be legal and do able but they should not be treated like slave labor that gets you no where.
if you
1.learn nothing
2.get no references
3.does not get your foot in the door for a job.
basically if you waste 3 months getting coffee for someone and get nothing in return I think it's no ok and that those college kids should be able to sue for some money.
Laphroaig rules! ...Unless you have Ardbeg.
I think he cut the red wire
Is it just me or does Andrew Heaton look like Paul Rudd?
If you can't pay them, they shouldn't be working for you. Isn't that capitalism?
The problem with Interns is it excludes poor people, it's fine to work for bugger all when mommy and daddy sub you.
Amazing Scottish accent
nice accents
Unpaid internships exacerbates income inequality, only children of wealthy people can afford to work for free.
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.
I know some interns who do really hard and legit work. They're not just coffee makers. I'm talking I know a guy who does calculations for an engineering firm and if he screwed something up it could mean massive project failure. Interns should at least get paid a few bucks an hour or in paid in some form
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
I'm an Intern, and my company gets tax cuts so they could just do that. Hire paid interns and get tax cuts.
Why would you work for free? You could work elsewhere, start your own thing, study, or collect unemployment benefits. It's not really training, the company has no incentive to hire you afterwards. Unless the fair market value of an intern's work is actually zero, they could instead just "hire" the next sucker for free. Real companies _invest_ in training their workforce.
I believe that we should have freedom of association.
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?
it's amazing after all this time libertarians still don't understand "desperate" does not equal "willing"
But you can't deregulate interns either, otherwise companies WILL exploit their work, because that's what companies do. They want people to work for the lowest price possible, preferably for free.
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?
At three minutes the best joke was hey it's better to be a paid intern than a non-paid one, but, being a non-paid intern is better than not having a job at all. ha ha Straight out of Friedman's playbook, getting carried out of a steel plant missing limbs or dead is better than having no work at all.
Thats a bit extreme, dont you think? I doubt all unpaid internships end in that way :)
Lol, unpaid intern for a Congressional Representative here :)
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.
heh nope. The kinds of companies who need interns can afford to pay "college-educated" individuals (ie. not without skill) at least a minimum wage. I mean.. either that or let them sleep on your couch and eat your leftovers because how else you expect these kids to live, kids who have already been kicked out of the house to go to college and live life in the big city. huh huh? nope.. pay them.. you can afford the pennies it costs to invest in someone you might want working for you in the long run anyway.
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
How about you write me a free piece for my news site. You'll get free exposure. Yeah I thought not.
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
if employers want experience they should provide it, why do people constantly put companies before, well people?
"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
wow, unpaid internships are becoming illegal....this is amazing: fight for 15 guys!!!!
No.
I'll fight for 15 girls, though.
people who intern aren't hired more then those who don't
"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.