This law is actually a good thing, it breaks the prisoner's dilemma that is going on between job seekers. If one person worked an unpaid internship at a good job and the other didn't, the person who did would be significantly better off in the long run. But what happens with PD games is that over time everyone sees the this strategy and adjusts to it. So what ends up happening is everyone ends up doing an unpaid internship because not doing one is so damaging to ones career prospects. But all this does over time is increase the problems and lowers the future payouts from non-cooperation. And this conflict just creates more and more benefits for the 3rd party who is not part of this conflict, e.g. the private companies. Hence why almost every long term PD game ends in cooperation since payouts decrease to the point that cooperating has a better payout than continuing to fight.
The other part of the argument to keep unpaid internships is that the change in price of the interns from nothing to something will result in less jobs overall. This means that the value of the work produced is less than minimum wage + other costs (training, equip, etc.). Yes some people would not be hired but this is bullshit overall. Most work would have been done regardless if it was free or not that's why money and time is spent hiring someone. But, going back to the above dynamic, if you can get smart people working for free to pad their resume, why pay someone?
Really, if a business can't afford to pay an intern minimum wage, this is an organization that is poorly run or an internship that a student shouldn't be willing to forgo earnings for. I mean Hollywood studios can throw a bone to a dude just out of college with no money. And thats the other reason which makes unpaid internships unreasonable, it favor people that can work for free which are rich kids on average. The ones who desperately need the money, will have to take a job outside their field sometimes.
And that leads to my last point if you pay people anything, you increase the amount of people that will apply for an internship which will lead to better candidates since they didn't have to turn down another option to work for free. I worked in an smaller market research firm at one point precisely because they paid 12 bucks an hour for their interns.
The other part of the argument to keep unpaid internships is that the change in price of the interns from nothing to something will result in less jobs overall. This means that the value of the work produced is less than minimum wage + other costs (training, equip, etc.). Yes some people would not be hired but this is bullshit overall. Most work would have been done regardless if it was free or not that's why money and time is spent hiring someone. But, going back to the above dynamic, if you can get smart people working for free to pad their resume, why pay someone?
Really, if a business can't afford to pay an intern minimum wage, this is an organization that is poorly run or an internship that a student shouldn't be willing to forgo earnings for. I mean Hollywood studios can throw a bone to a dude just out of college with no money. And thats the other reason which makes unpaid internships unreasonable, it favor people that can work for free which are rich kids on average. The ones who desperately need the money, will have to take a job outside their field sometimes.
And that leads to my last point if you pay people anything, you increase the amount of people that will apply for an internship which will lead to better candidates since they didn't have to turn down another option to work for free. I worked in an smaller market research firm at one point precisely because they paid 12 bucks an hour for their interns.