Facebook Interns Earn More Than Half Of America, So Your Unpaid Internship Sucks

I don't care how good you think your internship is (or past internships were), it probably sucked compared to what interns get at Facebook and other giant Silicon Valley companies.

Get ready to have your heart broken.

Interns at Facebook make $7,500 a month. A MONTH. Don't believe me? See for yourself at Glassdoor.

Compare that to the average salary in America, where people bring home $3,800 a month. I'm trying not to weep as I write this.

Internships at Facebook (and most places) last three months, and in that time they make close to $22,500. If they worked for a whole year at that salary, they would make $96,000.

Do these Facebook interns know how lucky they are?

Facebook looks to hire as many interns as possible full time, which makes sense, but I can only imagine what their starting salaries would be.

Unless the entry level salary at Facebook is around $100k, it seems that most interns would be taking a bit of a pay cut.

Maybe that doesn't matter as much to them, since Facebook softens the blow of living expenses during their internships. On top of incredible compensation, Facebook offers perks that are so good it makes me want to cry.

Interns get put up in apartments and aren't required to pay rent. They also get to go on trips, all expenses paid, of course.

It gets better.

Interns get to eat all three meals free on Facebook's campus as well as free Facebook swag, Alcatraz tours, theater performances and fun stuff like scavenger hunts.

Scavenger hunts? This sounds more like summer camp than an internship, if you ask me.

If you think it's just the kids at Facebook making bank while interning, think again. They happen to be number two on the list of top ten highest paid internships in the country.

Number one is Pinterest. Interns there make $9,000.

Confession: I don't even have $9,000 to my name right now.

Interns at these big companies aren't paid to run around and get coffee (like I did at my internships). They do actual work on important projects.

Engineering interns at Pinterest start writing code in their first week, according to spokesperson Jamie Favazza. So that justifies the high compensation a bit, but the fact that these interns are literally out-earning America blows my mind.

Wondering what other companies are on this list?

Well, behind Facebook is VMware and LinkedIn where interns get $7,500. Followed by those are Yelp, Twitch, Uber and Microsoft, where interns are paid $7,200. Google pays interns around $6,100-$6,700 and Twitter interns get $6,000-$,7000.

To clarify, these numbers are all per month. Not for the three months total. Yeah. Remember the average salary in America is $3,800 a month.

You know what I got paid at my internships?

At one internship, I got minimum wage. I saw about $150 a week from a major television network. At other internships, I mostly got paid in free pizza.

Sigh. I'm not complaining, though. As a film major, being a software engineer at Facebook was just never in the cards.

If you're feeling bad about your past or current internship, just remember that no matter what you do in life, there will always be someone making more money than you.

Citations:  Facebook INTERNS earn $7,500 a month - double the average American salary (Daily Mail)