Forget the Green New Deal. AOC is right about one thing: unpaid internships.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., pledged last fall to pay her interns $15 an hour. This was a noteworthy step because only this week did House and Senate offices get money specifically for paying their interns. On Tuesday the House Administration Committee officially signed off on a program to pay interns on the Hill. Each lawmaker in the House will have $20,000 per year for that purpose, and the Senate funding, which depends on state size, averages about $50,000.
With a total pool of $14 million, each intern can get a maximum of $1,800 per month. In D.C., that’s barely enough for groceries and rent. But it’s a start.
Unpaid internships perpetuate inequality in the Capitol. Rich young people go to the Hill because they can afford to work an unpaid internship, and civic-minded kids whose parents can’t pay for their rent are left on the outside.
According to a 2017 study, almost no one gets paid in the House: Only 8 percent of House Republicans and 3.6 percent of House Democrats pay their interns. The nonprofit group Pay Our Interns also found that 51 percent of Republicans in the Senate and 31 percent of Democrats offered paid internships. The study reports:
In order to stop Washington from becoming more of a place where the wealthy and powerful become more wealthy and powerful, the government needs to compensate the people who work for it.
If you want to drain the swamp, paying interns is an important step.
