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Nancy Pelosi Wants to Raise Minimum Wage, but Pays Her Interns Nothing (VIDEO)

Real Clear Policy reports on the recent push in Washington to increase the minimum wage. Turns out, there’s some egregious hypocrisy in congress on this issue. Many of the Democrats pushing for a minimum wage increase happily use unpaid interns. That’s right, they often use interns and pay them nothing and then get in front of a microphone to complain about corporations paying their employees too little.

Why the double standard?

Jeremy Lott of Real Clear is actually defending the use of voluntary unpaid internships in his article. Meanwhile he cites an old videotaped exchange between House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and libertarian documentary maker Jan Helfeld. Helfeld asked Pelosi how much she pays her interns:

Pelosi replied, sensibly enough, “That depends on the program that they’re part of.” She explained that some interns are paid a stipend that is not tallied up by hourly work, and some work for free, usually for course credit at their universities.

Helfeld pounced: “But wait a second. Didn’t you say that all services were worth at least $5.15 [an hour]? And here there is a service that is being rendered to you personally that you are not compensating at all.”

“No, I said to you earlier — I said to you, unless someone decides that they want to volunteer. And you cannot underestimate the volunteer effort,” she said, faux patriotically.

Helfeld asked, “So if someone wants to volunteer to work at McDonald’s for $4, is that all right or is that illegal?”

If you support voluntary unpaid internships, in other words, it’s illogical to argue for increasing the minimum wage–or having any minimum wage law at all. Either you support voluntary work and compensation agreements on principle, or you don’t.

In case of the latter, you shouldn’t be taking advantage of unpaid labor while you point the finger at others for not paying their laborers enough.

Read the full story at Real Clear Policy.

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