Unpaid NYC Intern Fired After $32 Wage Demand, Slammed as ‘Silver-Spoon Socialist’

The fight over unpaid internships at New York City Hall was already uncomfortable. Then it got personal.

Mina Farahmand, a 21-year-old former New York City Council intern, says she was removed from her unpaid role after helping organize a petition demanding that all Council interns receive $32 an hour and health benefits. Her former office denies that version, saying the decision had nothing to do with organizing and was instead tied to performance. Now the story has taken another sharp turn, with critics seizing on reports about Farahmand’s affluent family background and accusing her of preaching working-class politics from a privileged perch.

That is what has made this story travel so fast. It is not just about one intern, one office, or one petition. It is about a larger contradiction sitting inside progressive politics: who gets to demand fairness, who gets accused of hypocrisy, and whether unpaid work is still defensible in one of the most expensive cities in America.

The Petition That Sparked the Fire

Farahmand had been working as an unpaid legislative intern for Manhattan Council Member Harvey Epstein, whose committee covers consumer and worker protection. Her internship began on May 19 and was expected to run through the end of July, but she was let go early after she and 31 other interns pushed for a dedicated fund to pay Council interns a “living wage” of $32 per hour, plus benefits such as health insurance.

That $32 figure is not random. Some Council internship and fellowship roles already pay that rate, but the system is uneven. Central staff interns and certain fellows may be paid, while interns in individual Council members’ offices can be unpaid, paid through office budgets, compensated through outside programs, or given college credit instead. The result is a patchwork system where young people can do similar civic work under very different financial conditions.

Farahmand has framed that system as unfair to working-class students who cannot afford to donate labor while paying for rent, food, transit, and school. At a rally, she accused City Hall of failing the very young workers it claims to champion, saying interns had “gone hungry,” gone without health care, and gone into debt while doing public-service work for free.

The city’s current minimum wage is $17 an hour in New York City, Long Island and Westchester, which makes Farahmand’s demand almost double the legal wage floor. But supporters argue the legal minimum is not the same as a livable wage in New York, where even basic expenses can swallow a paycheck before the month is half over.

The Firing Everyone Is Arguing About

The central question remains unresolved: was Farahmand fired because she organized, or because her office believed she was not performing well?

Farahmand says the timing speaks for itself. She has said she was dismissed shortly after the petition campaign reached Council leadership, and she later told rallygoers, “How dare they, in this so-called workers’ rights capital of the world, fire me for organizing for pay as an unpaid intern.”

Epstein’s side has rejected that accusation. He said the decision was “fully unrelated to organizing taking place” and “instead performance related,” adding that his office supports people advocating for themselves. His office has also said interns were brought in either for pay or academic reasons, depending on the role.

Speaker Julie Menin’s office has said internship policies were already under review. Menin has also said she paid interns when she was a Council member, but the broader Council policy gives individual members flexibility over how they structure intern roles and use office budgets.

Farahmand has said she plans to sue the City of New York for wages, arguing that unpaid Council internships are unlawful under the “primary beneficiary” test. That legal claim has not yet been tested in court. Federal labor guidance says courts use the primary beneficiary test to determine whether an intern is actually an employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act, though the same guidance also notes that public-sector volunteering may be treated differently when undertaken freely and without expectation of compensation.

The Privilege Question Complicates the Message

The latest backlash centers on Farahmand herself. A published report described her as coming from a wealthy family, noting that her father is a surgeon and pointing to family property holdings in Washington state. Critics used that background to paint her as a “silver-spoon socialist,” suggesting that someone with family resources should not be the face of a campaign about unpaid work. Former Councilman Robert Holden criticized her as a “nepo-baby agitator” who accepted an unpaid position and then tried to change the terms afterward.

That attack may land politically, but it does not settle the labor question. A person can come from privilege and still point to a broken system. At the same time, privilege can shape who has the time, confidence, and safety net to turn a workplace complaint into a public campaign. That tension is exactly why this story feels bigger than one intern’s résumé.

There is also a practical point here that City Hall cannot easily dodge. If unpaid internships are necessary to keep offices running, then they are not just educational favors. They are laborers. And if only students with financial cushions can afford to take them, public service becomes less open to the very young people politicians often claim they want to empower.

Still, Farahmand’s critics have one argument that will resonate with many readers: she accepted an unpaid role before demanding pay. Supporters will counter that accepting a bad deal does not make it fair, especially when unpaid internships are often treated as the price of entry into politics, media, law, government, and nonprofit work.

That is why this dispute has become such a noisy little mirror for New York politics. The city loves the language of worker power. It celebrates unions, wage campaigns, and fairness. But inside its own government offices, the rules can still depend on who has the budget, who has the connections, and who can afford to work for free.

Farahmand may or may not win her legal fight. Epstein may or may not convince the public that the firing was purely about performance. But the uncomfortable question is already out in the open: if City Hall believes work has dignity, why are some of its youngest workers still being paid in experience?