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Unpaid internships create barriers for young workers from less-privileged backgrounds to many career fields.
An Associated Press report in the Sun-Gazette weekend business section underscored that reality.
As the Associated Press reported, "the people who can take unpaid internships have financial safety nets, and that means they tend to benefit students who are wealthier … perpetuating wealth gaps."
We agree with the students' concerns. We recognize that this not only has a negative impact on many of them and their pursuits of careers, but a negative impact on us all -- we benefit as consumers and as members of the workforce when the best candidates for positions are able to pursue those positions and improve their own abilities and readiness.
We are reassured that colleges are addressing this issue. We want the best people for a job to get the job -- not merely someone whose parents have a sufficient but ideally irrelevant income.
But we remain skeptical that either the federal government or state governments can devise more one-size-fits-all policies that genuinely improve conditions.
Colleges and employers have the experiences and knowledge to address this issue, and address it with the nuance and precision it deserves. And it requires nuance -- in some cases unpaid internships are the only realistic option. Legislators and federal and state bureaucracies are too remote and to cumbersome to assess the best solutions and to account for the variety of circumstances in effect here.
Our governments would better serve young workers by focusing on federal deficits and on inflation, so that workers' earnings -- young and old -- are not stretched too thin and overtaxed.