# Do unpaid internships violate the minimum wage?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-unpaid-internships-violate-the-minimum-wage/655460
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [April 12, 2013, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-unpaid-internships-violate-the-minimum-wage/655460 "2013-04-12T00:35:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2013, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-unpaid-internships-violate-the-minimum-wage/655460/1 "2013-04-12T00:35:45Z")
I used to think of internships as a good thing … a way to get some work experience while still in school, and whether you got paid a tiny bit or nothing at all didn’t really matter much. However, there seem to be an increasing number of internships given to recent graduates rather than current students, and are for full-time work lasting a year or more. To my thinking, these companies are exploiting the current desperation of entry-level professionals in order to get a slice of their work-force for free. It would be illegal to pay them $1 per hour, so why is it OK to have them work for nothing?
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2013, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-unpaid-internships-violate-the-minimum-wage/655460/2 "2013-04-12T01:28:02Z")
> **[Fact Sheet #71: Internship Programs Under The Fair Labor Standards Act](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-internships)**
>
> Wage and Hour Division Fact Sheet - U.S. Department of Labor
Here are the rules from the feds. States may have additional rules.