White House interns will be paid for the first time this fall, opening the doors of the prestigious program to lower-income applicants

• The recent bipartisan $1.5 trillion spending bill contains $4.5 million for White House internships.
• That funding means that, for the first time, those internships will be paid.

For the first time ever, internships at the White House will be paid.

The Biden administration announced Thursday that the fall 2022 session will be the Oval Office's first paid class of interns, saying that "unpaid federal internships have been a barrier to hardworking and talented students and professionals."

"This significant milestone of paying White House interns will help remove barriers to equal opportunity for low-income students and first-generation professionals," a press release said. Making the internship paid will help ensure that recipients "reflect the diversity of America."

In March, the Senate passed a $1.5 trillion government funding bill, which includes $4.5 million to fund the White House and Executive Office internship program. The bill, which had bipartisan support, helped avert a government shutdown and includes billions in aid for Ukraine. President Joe Biden signed the omnibus on March 16.

"A White House internship is the equivalent of a Rhodes Scholarship, in terms of prestige," said Carlos Mark Vera, the executive director of Pay Our Interns, which has been behind the push to make Congressional, White House, and State Department internships paid. He's also a former unpaid intern at the White House. "You do the White House internship, you're pretty set. Most doors open."

Indeed, former White House interns include Anita Dunn, a former senior advisor to President Biden, and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, among a slew of other boldface names.

When he was doing his own unpaid internships, Vera said that he would "immerse into this culture of pay your dues and grind, hustle."

"I had a lot of challenges doing my unpaid internships coming from a working class background," Vera said.

Now, the funding has removed a barrier for more working class interns, Vera said. It's the culmination of years of organizing after a group of over 200 former White House interns called upon the incoming Biden administration to make internships paid.

"This Administration is committed to advancing equity, and we appreciate the bipartisan support for the President's proposal to help remove barriers to equal opportunity," a White House spokesperson said in a statement to Insider on the bill's signing. "The bipartisan funding bill will also allow the State Department and USAID to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and adaptability across the Federal Workforce."

Unpaid internships are widespread and not financially feasible for many

Last June, the president signed an executive order calling on the federal government to pare down how much it relies on unpaid interns.

In years past, interns across industries may have found themselves paying thousands to hold their positions, worsening income inequality. A recent brief from the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions at University of Wisconsin-Madison found that it's likely middle-class and low-income students "self-select out of unpaid work due to their socio-economic status," and therefore "are kept from these opportunities and their later rewards or take out loans that may be adding to an already considerable debt load."

Per that report's estimates, the US has 3.28 million interns — and about 1 million of them are unpaid.

"Everyone deserves fair pay—including interns. White House interns are an exceptional group, who have earned a highly competitive position and who work hard to support the daily operations of the executive branch," Rep. Mike Quigley, said in a statement on intern funding. "They deserve to be paid for their service to our country."

Intern pay, and pay issues more broadly, have gained increasing prominence in the last year. A near-record number of Americans have been quitting their jobs for eight months straight, and many of those quitters say it's over low pay. Companies seem to finally be listening, with wages skyrocketing up.

Congress has undergone somewhat of its own reckoning. As Insider's Kayla Epstein reported, an Instagram account called Dear White Staffers gained major traction with its anonymous stories about low pay and poor treatment that come from purported staffers. Vera said that the account has "really changed the game." And Congressional staffers recently announced their intent to organize and union.

"The fact that the White House — that the president — would be paying his own interns, I think will send a very strong message to the nonprofit world, other agencies, local government," Vera said. "Like, hey, if the White House is finally paying, which they never have, maybe we need to start."