Facebook interns out-earn the average American
- Alayna Treene, author of Axios Sneak Peek
Long gone are the days of unpaid internships, at least at these 25 companies who are paying interns more than what the average American earns. Tech and finance interns in particular — including at Google, Bloomberg, BlackRock, and Facebook — earn more per month than the average American, according to data released by Glassdoor Tuesday.
The stats: Facebook interns take 1st place as the highest-paid interns in the U.S. They make on average $8,000 per month, which equates to $96,000 per year. Microsoft interns come in a close second, making an average of $7,100 per month. Meanwhile, the average full-time working American makes $51,350 a year, or $4,279 per month, before taxes.
Why this matters: The data highlights the growing income inequality among Americans across different job sectors. As CNBC points out, a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in December reveals that the average income of Americans in the bottom half of the income spectrum has remained stagnant at $16,000 since 1980. Meanwhile, the average income of the top one-percent of American adults has risen from $420,000 to $1.3 million from 1980 to 2014.