Ivy League Conservatives

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Talking Post Memo discussed the state of the job market for young graduates. Basically, it’s harder to get ahead for my generation than it is for previous generations for a myriad of reasons. To Steven Greenhouse’s observations, I add my own on the impact of unpaid internships.

In highly competitive job fields, college graduates are expected to have job experience before they’ve even graduated. A rising senior with two years’ worth of internships has a much stronger application than someone in the same major with the same GPA and an average Joe summer job. Employers know this, and craft unpaid “school credit” internships to attract hard-working college students to do work for free that entry-level workers used to do, eliminating that salaried/hourly entry-level position altogether. The employer’s next lowest paid position–which, before the era of the internship, was the first promotion a new hire got–then becomes the new lowest paid position.

For example: a small magazine has a chain of command that goes as follows: Editor-in-Chief, Senior Editor, Department Editor(s), Associate Editor, Assistant Editor. This magazine employs four unpaid interns, who fact-check, conduct research, take phone calls, and perform other miscellaneous office-type tasks–all tasks that an entry-level Assistant Editor would have done. The new entry-level position is still the Assistant Editor, who performs Associate Editor-level work. The Associate Editor position is eliminated entirely, saving the magazine $40K (or thereabouts, depending on the location) plus benefits per year. Now this AE position is offered for an entry-level wage, maybe $25-30K with limited benefits. The magazine saves $40K by eliminating a position, then employs someone to do a higher level of work for less pay. 

If a small magazine can operate thusly, how much money do the big boys save by operating under the same cost-cutting business practices?