Members of Congress push minimum wage hike but don't pay their interns

Nicole Gaudiano | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Most members of Congress who support legislation to boost the minimum wage don't pay their interns, a study shows.

Of the 205 House and Senate sponsors of the Raise the Wage Act, which would increase the federal minimum wage to $12 per hour by 2020, only a dozen pay their interns while the rest — 94% — do not, says the Employment Policies Institute. The employer-backed nonprofit, which considers minimum wage hikes a threat to entry-level jobs, released its study in May and updated it in June.

The institute supports unpaid internships that give young people valuable work experience. But Michael Saltsman, the group's research director, said it's "hypocritical" for lawmakers to seek to raise the minimum wage and not pay their own interns.

"Both internships and minimum wage jobs provide valuable entry-level work experience — experience that would be harder to come by if the minimum wage is increased," he said.

Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute, also said lawmakers should pay congressional interns, but he called the study a "distraction" from the need to raise the minimum wage for workers who are mostly adults.

"The vast majority of minimum wage workers are adults and many of them have children, and that's very different from the interns that work on Capitol Hill, by and large," he said.

Information for the study was gathered from lawmakers' websites or phone calls to their offices. Internships were classified as paid, even if not all interns in each office were paid.

The Raise the Wage Act has only Democratic co-sponsors and stands little chance of advancing in a Republican-controlled Congress.

Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., one of the bill's original co-sponsors, has long supported a minimum wage increase. But budget limitations keep him from paying interns, according to his office. Although Welch represents the entire state as its lone congressman, his 2015 office allowance of about $1.25 million is less than half the $3 million allowance for Vermont senators, who both pay their interns.

"Our interns typically earn college credit for their experience while gaining practical job skills, a working knowledge of the legislative process, and a sampling of a public service career," said Kirsten Hartman, a spokeswoman for Welch. "In addition, we frequently hire interns upon graduation for full-time staff positions."

Internships are often unpaid. A National Association of Colleges and Employers survey of 10,210 graduating college seniors in 2014 showed 61% took part in internships and co-ops, and 46.5% of those were unpaid.

Rules are different for lawmakers and "for profit" private sector employers when it comes to paying interns. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, "for profit" private sector internships may only be unpaid if they are educational, don't replace regular employees, provide "no immediate advantage" to the employer, and meet certain other criteria, according to the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division.

A separate law, however, applies to U.S. congressional employees and exempts interns from the right to payment.

Unlike the private sector, lawmakers aren't profiting personally from the work of interns, Eisenbrey said, but "that doesn't mean they shouldn't pay them for their work."

Welch's interns could be asked to answer phones, run errands, research legislation, attend hearings and answer constituent letters, according to his website.

Those duties in the private sector, on their face, would be "employment duties," Eisenbrey said. The legal test for private sector payment would hinge on whether the employer is giving the intern more in education than it's getting back in work.

Eisenbrey said a case could be made for unpaid congressional internships. In some offices, interns may be closely mentored and get a valuable inside look at the congressional process.

"Whether it's enough to balance against the free labor the member of Congress is getting is going to be a case-by-case question," he said.

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