If they're not getting paid, it's not really part of the economy, is it?

money not only represent of value. credebility of work with experience have value also.

If McDonald's can afford to hire low-skill people for minimum wage across the US, so can companies for under-skilled interns. Not paying someone for work isn't cool unless it's a volunteer position. Businesses shouldn't be getting volunteer labor. Non-profits and, maybe, governments are the only ones that should be getting volunteer interns.

McDonald's lobbied to pay minors, as new hires, less than minimum wage, which is still allowed. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/32-minimum-wage...

Perhaps a parallel to internships.

Interesting. I wasn't aware of that, but will note that it's only for 90 days (which would cover most summer jobs, though) and the employer must pay more if the state/local minimum wage doesn't have the same under 20 exemption.

And yes, there is some parallel to internships which are generally paid at a rather low rate (often lower than the lowest equivalent employee; a CS intern is going to get paid less than a 1st year out of college new hire developer). But they're still being paid, and it's still the minimum wage (even though it's a lower minimum wage than for those over 20).

This causes a lot of problems with gatekeeping in certain fields because a lot of people can't afford to go without income for months. Why do you support autocratic corporations as opposed to the publicly accountable government? Do you also support allowing companies to use child labor if companies find it to be profitable?

Internships are absolutely good (well mostly) it is the fact that they are unpaid which cuts out a large proportion of society from being able to take make use of them. If that cuts talented (but poor) people out of these jobs and career paths then you can end up with very hegemonous companies.