Short-changing the future: The systemic gap between psychology internship stipends and living wages

Abstract

Introduction: Providing doctoral internship stipends below living wages may harm interns, the clinical services they provide, and the field of health service psychology as a whole. This study evaluated the extent to which doctoral psychology internship stipends from the 2021-2022 training year for APA-accredited, APPIC-member programs in the US are consistent with living wages in the geographic region where sites are located. Methods: We obtained data reflecting internship sites’ geographic location and stipends for the 2021-2022 academic year. Using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Living Wage Calculator, we computed a living wage for the county in which each internship site is located. Descriptive statistics, discrepancies, ratios, and correlations were calculated to reflect the associations between internship sites’ stipends and their local living wages.Results: The median internship stipend was 30,000 US dollars (USD), which was lower than the median living wage by 3,800 USD. Stipends ranged widely, from a low of 15,000 to a high of 94,595 USD–reflecting a six-fold difference in wages. Although internship sites in higher cost of living areas paid higher stipends, over two-thirds (66.5%) of sites did not pay a stipend that equaled or exceeded a living wage. Ninety-six sites (15.0%) had deficits of over 10,000 USD when comparing their stipends to local living wages, with 33,240 USD as the highest deficit.Discussion: Eliminating obstacles to educating health service psychologists by decreasing the financial burden of training will likely have subsequent critical benefits towards bridging the workforce gap between mental healthcare service needs and available providers, ultimately leading to improved population health.