Political interns deserve to be paid for their work


An intern on a high-stakes political campaign is constantly in motion. Preparing for a life as a political operative, these college students dutifully neglect time with friends, regular exercise and non-processed food in favor of endless hours on the phone and a nightly dinner of Twix bars and pretzels slyly taken from the volunteer table. A committed intern chooses to invest his or her time into a political campaign due to a sense of idealism combined with ambition. But this campaign intern will not receive any monetary returns on their investment.

Denying interns pay for mountains of work is a time-honored tradition on political campaigns. But voters increasingly cry foul at the notion that presidential campaigns can raise tens of millions of dollars but fail to pay dedicated entry-level workers. The issue has become especially vexing for campaign managers that must balance public relations concerns with the needs to control costs and keep the volunteer base that supports campaigns intact. However, despite the risks, political interns should be paid — but not by individual campaigns.

Although presidential campaigns now raise more money than ever, campaign field infrastructure has complicated intern compensation. The neighborhood team model of organizing, popularized by the 2008 Obama campaign, encourages civic action from the ground up, with a campaign’s field staff working to recruit, train and support volunteers who spread a candidate’s message.

Volunteer leaders are the key players in this process — they influence their friends and neighbors to take action. Ideally, a community network of volunteers organically develops. In the days leading up to the election, volunteers work with their neighbors to make individual vote plans. But while the neighborhood team model encourages civic engagement and gets out the vote effectively, it may stand in the way of intern pay.

Electoral campaigns at every level run on volunteer contributions, especially gargantuan presidential campaigns that can be paralyzed by recurring expenses. By paying an intern for performing tasks similar to those done by a volunteer, the campaign risks putting a price tag on the services provided by its neighborhood team members. This creates a circumstance in which the intern is paid and the volunteer is not, which could sap the altruistic motivation of volunteers. If intern compensation created volunteer attrition or a slump in volunteer productivity, the effects on a campaign could be fatal, so campaigns tend to avoid this risk entirely by not paying interns.

Furthermore, leadership on this issue is unlikely to come from campaigns — only one candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, pays his interns. This is because unproven interns are financial risks, too. Paying interns is unlikely to be cost-beneficial, as campaigns have short windows and limited capabilities to train and develop interns. After an election cycle ends, interns almost certainly will not wait around for two, four or six years for the candidate’s next election, so a candidate that pays interns is unlikely to reap the benefits on his or her risky investment.

However, by denying interns pay, campaigns incur other hidden costs. In the short term, campaigns depend less on low-income interns, disproportionately black and Latino students, who often cannot afford to work without pay. And by denying low-income students access to internships, these students become less likely to access entry-level political jobs and upper-level campaign positions.

In addition to obstructing diversity in politics, unpaid internships hurt the long-term hiring capabilities of political campaigns, because they do not offer the same “signal” as paid internships. Paid internships, which lead to employment much more consistently than unpaid internships, may more frequently offer a signal that interns are competent and represent a worthy investment.

Unpaid internships do not offer similar signals to employers, especially on campaigns. Since it costs almost nothing for an employer to bring on an unpaid intern, the employer has less of an incentive to provide development opportunities to interns, and intern work is often cursory. Therefore, hiring managers on political campaigns have little assurance that someone who worked as an unpaid intern on a prior campaign is any more competent than another entry-level candidate.

Political parties can fill this void. State parties employ full-time staff members that communicate the party platform and raise money between election cycles. During major cycles, state parties back candidates and contribute to their campaigns. State parties could fundraise for paid internship programs, increase contributions to candidates that pledge to compensate interns and directly fund party-managed internship programs.

By failing to pay interns, these organizations miss the chance to create a reliable talent pipeline while denying opportunities to low-income students. To broaden the talent pool and enhance the development of our future political leaders, political parties should commit to investing in interns.