Over the past couple of years, Hillary Clinton has lambasted companies for taking advantage of interns and not paying them a wage or a salary. She argued this was unfair treatment of the next generation, and urged businesses to start paying their interns.
“Businesses have taken advantage of unpaid internships to an extent that it is blocking the opportunities for young people to move on into paid employment,” Clinton said at UCLA in 2013. “More businesses need to move their so-called interns to employees.”
Clinton Foundation Doesn’t Pay Interns
Soon after she made these remarks, it was reported that the Clinton Foundation doesn’t pay its interns. In very rare cases, interns will receive a $1,000 stipend for a four-month period. If it’s a question of affordability, it should be revealed that the Clinton Foundation has assets of more than $500 million. In 2013, the Foundation spent just under $30 million on salaries, benefits and compensation in 2013.
Also, other foundations pay their interns. Here’s an outline from The Daily Beast:
“The Ford Foundation offers a paid summer internship program and its website boasts that alumni return to work part-time during the school year and that others have been offered full-time positions.
“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said interns receive a ‘competitive’ monthly salary, subsidized housing and ‘additional benefits such as use of the foundation’s health clinic and ability to access matching charitable gifts program.’”
Champion of the Middle Class Doesn’t Pay Interns
Now that she’s running as a so-called champion of the middle class, many have delved into her campaign’s pay. As some suspected, Clinton’s presidential campaign doesn’t pay any of its interns. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Perhaps she modeled her campaign off of the Clinton Foundation.
On Sunday, the Clinton campaign tweeted out that interns should apply so they can receive free coffee, great views and “the chance to make history.” How nauseating.
Interning at #Hillary2016 HQ in NYC: ✔️ Free coffee ✔️ Great views ✔️ The chance to make history Apply today → http://t.co/519xG6Q5h2
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 16, 2015
It should be noted that it’s not necessarily a big deal that a political campaign is comprised of volunteers and unpaid interns. This is how most campaigns operate. However, when you have openly chastized businesses for not paying interns and telling millennials that you want enterprises to start treating interns fairly, then you have a problem. A hypocritical one.
Moreover, Clinton has gone on record of supporting a $12 minimum wage. Some on the left want her to endorse a $15 minimum wage. Whether she supports a $12 minimum wage or a $15 minimum wage is meaningless because both will lead to unintended consequences, but she’s not paying any of her interns that amount of money.
Clinton is also an advocate of spending billions of dollars to make college more affordable.
Clinton is in favor of coercing businesses into paying a certain wage for interns. But at the same time she doesn’t concern herself with paying her own interns a so-called living wage. If it’s a matter of finances, Clinton is getting plenty from Wall Street (SEE: Crony Alert: Wall Street banking on Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton in the White House).
The hypocrisy smells up to high heaven!
Even Clinton supporters are urging her to pay interns. In June, Carolyn Osorio published an op-ed in USA Today demanding that Clinton pay her interns.
“I had hoped a trailblazer would be more willing to break the mold of indentured servitude that haunts my generation. Finding out that Hillary perpetuates the exploitation known as unpaid internships was like discovering that Santa wasn’t real.”
Hypocrisy Extends Elsewhere
This isn’t the first time that a politician has been in favor of forcing businesses to pay interns or in support of a higher minimum wage while paying their own interns very little.
It was reported that presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who has been gaining some momentum in recent weeks, pays his own Senate interns $12 as opposed to the $15 he wants.
We can’t also forget the hilarious interview Jan Helfeld conducted with former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. In the interview, Pelosi wants to force every business to pay a minimum wage, but she doesn’t pay her interns much. The double standard, and her attempted defense, was entertaining.
This is just another case of do as I say, not as I do. Politicians want everyone to follow their rules and regulations, but don’t want to live under that same roof of rules and regulations. Perhaps this Venn diagram courtesy of the American Enterprise Institute illustrates the discussion of unpaid internships:
Clinton is not a champion of the middle class. She is like the rest of the ruling elite. The only difference between Clinton and the Jeb Bushes and the Donald Trumps is the letter that sits next to their names on interviews.
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