Would You Like Staples With Your Copies?

Extending Doug's discussion on the EITC and the minimum wage, in the comments on my May 12th post on the minimum wage, I was in a good discussion with Brandon V., and I mentioned that I couldn't figure out why it was legal for middle class and upper class "kids" (actually young men and women who years before would have been in the workforce, but that's another blogpost entirely) can work for free in "internships" but it's illegal for a young man or woman from the inner city who wants to build up a skill set to work for a training wage of $5.00/hour. Interestingly, over the past three weeks or so that same idea has cropped up on several different websites.

I recall that in Oklahoma, state Prohibition lasted longer than federal Prohibition, and one of the reasons it was finally repealed was the state actually started enforcing the law. Maybe the only way to get a training wage is for the Obama Administration to start shutting down internships for the well-to-do.... to enforce the minimum wage law across the board.