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What if I told you that internships are more lucrative today than they’ve been at any point this decade? You’d probably call me a fat liar, which, one of those is uncalled for. But it’s true! According to the Wall Street Journal, average compensation for internships has risen to its highest point since 2010, at a whopping $18.06/hour.
The years since 2010 have been rough, though. After bottoming out in 2014, average internship wages have risen steadily, but unfortunately remain lower than they were seven years ago. However, this issue is likely due not to people getting paid less, but due to the fact that more people are getting paid! How does this work? The law of averages.
Unpaid internships faced a lot of scrutiny at the turn of the decade, and several class-action lawsuits were filed against the practice. Once everyone took notice, they said, “I remember something from history class about not paying people for labor being bad” and the practice began to disappear. What happened THEN was that all the unpaid internships became paid internships at the minimum wage, driving down the average of internship wage. Apparently the people who did this study, much like primitive mesoamerican tribes, have no concept of zero.
A couple of things. First of all, if you’ve ever held a minimum wage job, $18.06/hr looks pretty good. IN FACT if you extrapolate that number to 40 hours a week over 50 weeks (I’m giving you two weeks paid vacation because I have to) you get over $36k, or as I like to call it, three times higher than the federal poverty line! Moreover, the average starting salary for an entry position fresh out of college is just a shade under $50k. So throw another avocado into the toaster or whatever because you’re about to be a rich-ass millennial like the rest of us..
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Icehouse
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As someone who did an unpaid internship and currently makes just as much as the average intern, this was really depressing.
Sup?
Aye a fellow Hoosier. Nice to see
I just got paid $6784 working off my laptop this month. And if you think that’s cool, my divorced friend has twin toddlers and made over $9k her first month. It feels so good making so much money when other people have to work for so much less. This is what I do Go this Web Click Here
Go this web and start your work.. Good luck…
Not-so-humblebrag there Jessica…
I was really hoping one of these bots would pop up on this post. Dreams do come true.
What does your friend’s divorce have to do with anything?
I work a full time job and get paid less than the average intern. PGP
Back in my day (2008), you were lucky to even land an internship. So $18/hr sounds lovely.
Same. I’m sure we’ve all done some things we regret to keep the money coming in.
No kidding. I knew maybe two people out of my network of friends and classmates in college who got paid internships, and both were because of a connection dropping it in their lap. They effectively didn’t exist.
were internships not as popular then or something? i graduated from college in 2007 and i don’t think i know anyone who had any type of internship.
My internship pay was $33 a day. PGP
If you only worked one hour per day, that’s bay area software engineer intern money!
minimum 12 hours and a lot of times days straight. No minimum wage laws on the high seas.
You pirates need a union.
I’m in a union… PGP
Back in the intern days my former manager gave me the highest $/hour intern offer the department had ever had and then she resigned a few weeks later. I didn’t realize it at the time but that was my introduction to the PGPM.
I made $10 an hour at my internship and I thought that was fine since it was more than minimum wage. PGP.
That was more than double what I made at any internship
I’m 5 years out of school, make less than the average intern, and worked multiple unpaid internships back in the day – one of which tasked me with cleaning the litter box for the office cat.
What universe is this 50k straight out of school + $18/hour internship stuff in? Because clearly I’m not living in it.
STEM
STEM and finance.
Unpaid internships are kind of important though. It is not like every company that had free interns decides to have the same number or any interns once they have to pay. In fields where it is vital to have any experience for the job search the absence of unpaid internships makes that much harder to get.
I’d be curious to see what the median wage is to see how that’s changed.