While these miserable little rates might help you buy a new pair of jeans today (because you’re still living with Mom and Dad and are trying to gain some experience), tomorrow you’re going to have grown-up obligations: municipal taxes, the insurance on the car, your children’s kindergarten. And who are you going to blame then, in the not so distant future, when you find yourself working on a depressed market? You can only blame yourself! What we veteran professionals recommend to those of you who claim to be working cheap in order to get some experience is this: Translate for some of the many NGOs that are out there. If you’re going to “give” your work away, do it by helping groups that are helping the community and the world, not by aiding and abetting a handful of hustlers who are lining their pockets at the profession’s expense.
Great advice and rap on the nuckles from Aurora Humarán (the president of IAPTI) in her excellent article "Globalization Gone Awry". Source: No Peanuts! for translators