Carlos Mark Vera, the 28-year-old founder of Pay Our Interns, has won his six-year battle to secure pay for White House interns. To celebrate, he’s biking the 545 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise money for AIDS/HIV research.
Vera, who had three different unpaid government internships, lobbied Congress to ensure that future interns didn’t need to work evenings as restaurant servers or forego meals to make ends meet while interning. This week the White House announced that it would pay its Fall 2022 intern class, marking the first time the jobs would come with a salary. Interns, who can start applying on Monday, will be paid $750 a week — $18.75 an hour for 40 hours.
Vera, who was part of the 2019 Forbes Under 30 Law & Policy list, said that young people ought to be free to focus on opportunity, rather than salary, as they begin their careers. “The goal from the start has been creating more equitable pathways across all sectors,” Vera told Forbes. “Whether it’s media, philanthropy, private sector — we just need to end up with professionals that reflect the diverse community of this country.”
Vera spent part of his childhood in Victorville, California, public housing with the help of a government food program. He attended American University in Washington but didn’t make it through because he spent so much time advocating for the school’s food-service and custodial workers. After government internships with the European Parliament, the White House and former U.S. Representative Joe Baca, Vera is now the executive director of Pay Our Interns, which he founded in 2016 and says will now advocate for private-sector interns.
Vera credits his crusade for teaching him how to mold his message to appeal to different types of people — in this case, the senators and congress members on both sides of the aisle who’d vote on a budget that would provide funding to pay interns.
“With Democrats, we were like, ‘You can’t talk about raising the minimum wage or a living wage but then not practice it in your offices,’” Vera says. “And with Republicans, we’re like, ‘Look, this is not a handout. People still need to work.’”
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June 04, 2022 at 04:06AM
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Meet The 28-Year-Old Behind The White House's Decision To Pay Its Interns - Forbes
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