Starting this fall, White House interns will be compensated for the first time in history — something economic experts say is long overdue.

“This is an important signal from the White House in light of current events in the broader American labor movement,” Spelman College Professor of Economics Dr. Suneye Rae Holmes told Yahoo Finance. “By paying interns for their work, the White House is showing that they are responsive to the needs of civil servants at a time when workers across public and private industries are vulnerable and are speaking up about what they need.”

The Biden administration recently announced interns will receive a weekly $750 stipend and be expected to work at least 35 hours a week. The move is one that could help level the playing field for many young Americans who could not previously afford to have a job that is unpaid.

The sweeping change is a groundbreaking effort thanks, in part, to a two-year campaign launched by a former White House intern who knew there had to be a better way. Carlos Mark Vera, who previously interned for the White House and Congress without pay, founded Pay Our Interns in 2016 to ensure interns across all industries were paid.

“We started with Congress because, up until 2017, they were the largest employer of unpaid interns—something like 10,000 interns a year,” Vera told Fortune. “I thought, ‘Things don’t have to be this way; we can reimagine it.’"

Previous administrations received criticism for not paying interns or covering expenses, deterring many qualified young Americans from applying altogether. Nationally, about 40% of internships at for-profit companies in 2021 were unpaid, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

“Too often, unpaid federal internships have been a barrier to hardworking and talented students and professionals, preventing them from contributing their talents and skills to the country and holding them back from federal career advancement opportunities,” the White House said in a statement.