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Ross Perlin, Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy (New York: Verso Publishing 2011)
In his book, Intern Nation, journalist Ross Perlin argues that internships are a new wild west - unregulated, often exploitative, a key factor in perpetuating income inequality, and a symptom of neoliberalism's reach. And this new labour category is growing. By one account, three-fourths of students now attending four-year colleges will intern at least once by the time they graduate, resulting in between one and two million interns in the United States each year, and countless others abroad. (xiv) This represents a twofold increase over the percentage of students holding internships thirty years ago (26).
Perlin argues that this explosion comes at considerable cost. One study estimates that half of internships in the United States are unpaid, including more than a third of internships at for-profit companies. (28) Unpaid internships are now the norm in journalism and politics. Students are often required to pay to receive college credit for internships with dubious educational value, cheapening the value of their degree and permitting interns to participate in payto-work scenarios. Few employers train interns. As a result, interns often float from internship-to-internship instead of being prepared for a full-time, paid job. Meanwhile, interns sometimes replace paid workers, eroding working and living standards, reducing possibilities for union organizing, and transforming the value of pay and work.
Perlin argues that internships raise serious economic, political, and legal concerns for society at large. It is not the wealthy Ivy League grad toiling away at an unpaid internship on Capitol Hill that Perlin hopes to save. It is the community college student aspiring to become a public servant who cannot afford to spend a semester working for nothing about whom he is most concerned. What are the consequences for the rest of us in the intern economy?
In order to answer this question, Perlin cites studies, economic concepts, labour law, and a tremendous number of examples culled from media...