Congress: Pay Your Interns!
By 
This is an obscenity that reinforces how rich people control our society.
Mayra Valadez still had two weeks left of her internship in the US House of Representatives when her bank balance dropped below $25.
A first-generation, low-income student from Los Angeles, Valadez had aspired to work on Capitol Hill since high school. While attending Cornell University, the only way she could afford the unpaid House internship she was offered was to use $4,000 of her scholarship money to fund the summer in Washington D.C., one of the most expensive cities in the country.
But seven weeks in, her funds ran out.
Unpaid House internships like Valadez’s are common. According to a report by the nonprofit Pay Our Interns, more than 90% of House members aren’t paying their interns. Broken down by party, only 8% of Republican representatives and 4% of Democrats pay their interns.
Unpaid congressional internships have been the norm since the 1990s, but that could end soon in the Senate. In June, Senators allocated $5 million to begin paying their interns. The provision is part of a broader spending bill that’s currently in conference, where the House and Senate are hashing out a final version of the bill.
The House has yet to approve such legislation.
A bill to do this is good, but it shouldn’t take a bill. And it disgusts me that Democrats are actually worse than Republicans. What unpaid internships do is reserve the ability to be the next leaders in a chosen career for the wealthy, whose parents can foot the bill. This directly contributes to the inequality that defines the New Gilded Age. There are some real structural issues that do have to be fixed, which should have been fixed long, long ago, so let’s hope this bill passes. But even if it doesn’t, at the very least, Democrats have to figure out a way to at least offer college credit for internships, which isn’t much, but at least it’s a step in the right direction. Because right now, this situation is completely unacceptable, especially for the party attempting to represent the working class.