© 2025 Seyfarth Shaw LLP Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2025 ed. | 25 7. The extent to which the intern and the employer understand that the internship is conducted without entitlement to a paid job at the conclusion of the internship.142 The test is flexible, and no single factor is determinative.143 As to non-profit charitable organizations, the revised Fact Sheet notes that unpaid internships are generally permissible.144 b. Massachusetts Exemption for Interns The Massachusetts Minimum Fair Wage Law allows an exemption for “work by persons being rehabilitated or trained under rehabilitation or training programs in charitable, educational or religious institutions . . . .”145 Determining whether an individual is a trainee, or intern, under Massachusetts law is a two-step process. First, the program must be run by a charitable, educational, or religious institution.146 “Charitable” institutions are those that have registered as charities with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Public Charities Division.147 Massachusetts has yet to define “religious” or “educational” institutions for the purposes of this statute.148 Second, the program in question must qualify as a “training program” such that it falls outside the scope of the Commonwealth’s minimum wage law. Because the term “training program” is not defined in the statute, Massachusetts relies on federal guidance. However, Massachusetts did not timely update its guidance on this topic. As a result, up until April 2023, the only available guidance from the DLS stated that Massachusetts “will employ” the six-factor test that from the 2010 DOL Fact Sheet in analyzing internship and/or training programs under the Minimum Fair 142 DOL Wage & Hour Fact Sheet #71 (updated Jan. 2018), available at https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf (last visited Mar. 5, 2025). 143 Id. 144 Id. 145 M.G.L. ch. 151, § 2. 146 Id. See also DLS Opinion Letter MW-2002-013 (May 9, 2002). Individuals may also qualify as “trainees” if they participate for rehabilitation purposes. See M.G.L. ch. 151, § 2 (excluding “persons being rehabilitated or trained” from those working in an “occupation”). 147 DLS Opinion Letter MW-2002-013 (May 9, 2002). 148 The DLS has opined that educational “programs” are those that make training an integral part of their educational curricula and provide supervision and possibly academic credit to students. DLS Opinion Letter MW-2003-002 (Feb. 10, 2003). See also DLS Opinion Letter MW-2001-017 (Nov. 19, 2001).
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