Just 9 percent of House offices advertise paid internships, according to an outside group, despite Congress approving a fund for paying interns last year.

The 2019 legislative branch appropriations bill provided congressional offices with $20,000 in funds to pay interns for the first time. Appropriators at the time heralded the move as a step toward making internships more broadly available to low- and moderate-income people who could not afford to take an unpaid position.

ADVERTISEMENT

But the study from Pay Our Interns (POI) found that most House offices were not actively advertising their paid internships. In fact, 61 percent advertised that they did not offer paid internships, and some 30 percent didn’t include salary information on their website at all.

The study did not look at the Senate.

Not advertising paid internships, the group said, defeated the whole purpose of the legislation.

“It is astonishing to see that so many offices have decided not to use any of the $20,000 allocated for intern pay,” said POI co-founder Guillermo Creamer.

“We are calling on all offices to update their websites to reflect that internships are paid, and reach out to POI with questions about establishing a paid internship program,” he added.