Snopes is one of my favorite websites. The Urban Legend debunking site usually does a great job — But on this article they reported correctly that Bernie Sanders is the only one paying interns, but then blew it. Snopes says: “First, the candidates offering unpaid internships are not breaking any laws. In most cases, it is perfectly legal to hire interns for non-paying positions as long as those interns receive some tangible benefit (such as school credit or valuable work experience) in return.” Big Snope – Nope. Per the department of labor, you pay everyone unless these six criteria are met:

  1. The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;
  2. The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;
  3. The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;
  4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
  5. The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and
  6. The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

I bet interns on a presidential campaign work and work hard. I bet that work benefits the employer, in this case the campaign.

I’m not saying people can’t volunteer for campaigns — that’s the essence of democracy. But when we are talking about people that are basically working for the campaign as a full time job, they probably need to be paid.

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