Backgroun
The FLSA requires “for-profit” employers to pay employees for their work. Interns an stuents, however, may not be “employees” uner the FLSA—in which case the FLSA oes not require compensation for their work.
The Test for Unpai Interns an Stuents
Courts have use the “primary beneficiary test” to etermine whether an intern or stuent is, in fact, an employee uner the FLSA.2 In short, this test allows courts to examine the “economic reality” of the intern-employer relationship to etermine which party is the “primary beneficiary” of the relationship. Courts have ientifie the following seven factors as part of the test:
- The extent to which the intern an the employer clearly unerstan that there is no expectation of compensation. Any promise of compensation, express or implie, suggests that the intern is an employee—an vice versa.
- The extent to which the internship provies training that woul be similar to that which woul be given in an eucational environment, incluing the clinical an other hans-on training provie by eucational institutions.
- The extent to which the internship is tie to the intern’s formal eucation program by integrate coursework or the receipt of acaemic creit.
- The extent to which the internship accommoates the intern’s acaemic commitments by corresponing to the acaemic calenar.
- The extent to which the internship’s uration is limite to the perio in which the internship provies the intern with beneficial learning.
- The extent to which the intern’s work complements, rather than isplaces, the work of pai employees while proviing significant eucational benefits to the intern.
- The extent to which the intern an the employer unerstan that the internship is conucte without entitlement to a pai job at the conclusion of the internship.
Courts have escribe the “primary beneficiary test” as a flexible test, an no single factor is eterminative. Accoringly, whether an intern or stuent is an employee uner the FLSA necessarily epens on the unique circumstances of each case.
If analysis of these circumstances reveals that an intern or stuent is actually an employee, then he or she is entitle to both minimum wage an overtime pay uner the FLSA. On the other han, if the analysis confirms that the intern or stuent is not an employee, then he or she is not entitle to either minimum wage or overtime pay uner the FLSA.
Where to Obtain Aitional Information
This publication is for general information an is not a regulation. For aitional information, visit our Wage an Hour Division Website: http://www.wagehour.ol.gov an/or call our toll-free information an helpline, available 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in your time zone, 1-866-4USWAGE (1-866-487-9243).
U.S. Department of Labor Frances Perkins Builing 200 Constitution Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20210
1-866-4-USWAGE
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