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No one’s talking about this major benefit when making the business case for paying your interns

The CEO of WayUp says that after years of research and millions of data points, many in her field agree that paying interns is one simple yet effective change that would make a huge difference in driving more equality in the workplace

Source | www.fastcompany.com | LIZ WESSEL

Between the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, the Harvey Weinstein and Derek Chauvin trials, and the millions of stories and videos being shared on social media, America has had its eyes opened more than ever to what systemic sexism and racism looks like.

As likely anyone would agree, there are countless approaches that we as a country can take to address these issues. However, the approach I have spent the last several years on, and have raised tens of millions of dollars to address, is around inequalities in the workforce, specifically among entry-level candidates.

After years of research and millions of data points, many in my field have agreed that employers paying their interns is a simple yet effective change that makes a huge difference in driving more equality in the workplace.

Let’s take a step back.

In January 2018, under the Trump administration, the Department of Labor issued a new set of guidelines to help companies navigate the legalities of unpaid internships. To put it simply, the courts reinstated the “primary beneficiary test,” which meant that for a company to not need to pay its interns, all it had to do was prove that an intern “benefited more” than the organization from the internship. That’s all.

If companies did that, they didn’t need to pay their interns. (This replaced the 2010 DOL law that set forth a “six-part test” which made it more difficult to not pay your interns.) What this doesn’t take into account is the cost of one college student to have an unpaid internship over the summer. According to 2016 estimates from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, that number is $6,800.

Consider which students can afford to not make any money and, instead, spend $6,800 working? Typically, it’s people who come from money. What this means is that there is an entire group of internships that are essentially designed only for students who come from financially advantaged backgrounds. And in the U.S., “financially advantaged” likely means you’re white.

This is just one of the many reasons why unpaid internships perpetuate systemic inequality, especially when you consider that 56% of interns wind up landing a full-time job directly from their internship. It should therefore be no surprise that people of color make up a much larger percentage of those recent graduates who are unemployed despite their college degrees.

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Source
www.fastcompany.com
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