Legality of unpaid or low paid internships

[drowningstudent]

Jurisdiction

New York

I am in the interviewing process and finding it very difficult to obtain quality employment. Several employers have been offering me internships which I've discovered are either unpaid 'with benefits of experience' or paying a nominal amount that is called a 'stipend' but calculates to be somewhere slightly below minimum wage based on the expected potential hours. I thought that this might no longer be legal in New York state and possibly in the US. Could someone help me understand whether this is actually a law, regulation, or just an ethical aspiration that an industry may have mentioned?

 

[cbg]

It is never, anywhere in the US, legal to have a completely unpaid internship UNLESS it is under a bona fide program in which you receive college/university credit for the work you do. The FLSA prohibits work for free.

Stipends can be legal but I'll let Tax get into the details as they're somewhat complicated. I work for the employee benefits office of a university and we have three kinds of post-docs; some of whom are benefits-eligible, some of which are not benefits-eligible and some of which are sometimes benefits-eligible and it's all determined by how their stipends are paid.

 

[adjusterjack]

Legal if NY's and federal requirements are followed.

New Yorkers: Is Your Unpaid Internship Program Legal?

Priori Employment Lawyer, Evan White, discusses the NY requirements to operate a legal unpaid internship program.

www.priorilegal.com

More resources:

ny unpaid or low paid internships at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

My take: Internships are bulls--t ways for an unscrupulous employer to get free, or cheap, labor.

What is your degree in?