Pay Our Interns: Pay and Racial Disparities are Still Rampant in Congressional Internships

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Pay Our Interns, a non-profit committed to ensuring all people—especially people of color and of low-income backgrounds—have equitable access to professional career paths, released its latest report which reveals unequal economic and racial representation continues among paid Congressional interns, with 76% of interns being white.

Who Congress Pays: Analysis of Lawmakers' Use of Intern Allowances in the 116th Congress,  which examines over 8500 pages of payroll information, is the first reporting of how Congress has spent funds allocated to pay interns, and is a follow-up to Color of Congress, which established a baseline for Congressional intern employment data. It's not all bad news; more than 90 percent of congressional offices used allocated funds to pay interns. To democratize the use of funds, the report recommends more transparent hiring, expanding remote internships opportunities, increasing stipends, engaging and recruiting from communities of color, and prioritizing need-based applicants.

"Congressional internships are not just taxpayer-funded opportunities. They are also on-ramps to public office and public service, and we must use an equity lens in hiring these young leaders," said Carlos Mark Vera, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Pay Our Interns. "This report shows that offices need to improve on compensation and hiring practices. We worked with Congress to establish the fund in the first place, and we look forward to working with members to continue to build on this progress."

The report found White Congress members are three times as likely to hire a white intern as members of Color; White students made up 76 percent of paid congressional interns despite only representing 52 percent of college students. Meanwhile, members of color make up 24 percent of Congress but employ 33.5 percent of interns of color. Even then Black and Latino students were underrepresented. The report also shows that nearly 50 percent of paid interns attend or attended private universities, which is double the number of undergraduate students who attend private universities nationally.

While most offices used allocated funds to pay their interns, the average total stipend was approximately $1,986.75 in the Senate and $1,612.53 in the House, which is not enough to live and work in DC. Latino senators paid their interns significantly more than non-Latino members by an average of $772.03 per intern. Asian senators paid their interns significantly more than non-Asian members by an average of $1,515.74 per intern. In the House, American Indian and Alaska Native representatives provided the most generous stipend amounts. Finally, women made up the larger share of paid interns: 56 percent in the Senate and 51 percent in the House.

Equity in the administration of paid internships means ensuring students from all racial backgrounds are equally paid for their work. It also means prioritizing the hiring of students from less privileged backgrounds, who otherwise would not have the opportunity to work in Congress.

Congress does not monitor the race of its workforce in a systematic, reliable, and public manner. Congress does, however, publish its payroll records. These data contain the name, title, and salary for every congressional employee, including paid interns. Pay Our Interns used this information to collect more data about paid interns and their race, gender, and educational institutions. Researches supplemented this data with original, online research from a variety of sources, including Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter.

To read the full report, visit payourinterns.org. Sign up here to join the fight against unpaid internships.

Pay Our Interns is a 501(c)(3) non-profit founded in 2016 and led by two formerly unpaid interns of color. It is the nation's only organization fighting to ensure all students—especially Black, Latinx, and Native American students—have equitable access to professional career paths through the implementation of paid internships countrywide. Pay Our Interns (POI) seeks to ensure individuals from all backgrounds are represented across industries impacting their communities, and develop pathways for advancement. In doing so, POI creates a more equitable workforce, more diverse leadership, and a more just world.  POI is headquartered in Washington, D.C. For more information visit www.payourinterns.org. 

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SOURCE Pay Our Interns