Lack of government data on internships leaves policymakers in the dark

By Ross Eisenbrey, Vice President, Economic Policy Institute

Experts at companies that track internships generally agree that about 75 percent of college graduates will have taken at least one internship over the course of their four-year college career. This means that each year, more than a million four-year college students work as interns during the summer or during the school year. Recent surveys suggest that more than half of these interns are unpaid.

Add in interns from high schools, community colleges, university graduate programs, and even mid-career adults, and there may be as many as 2 million interns employed each year. Experts agree that the internship phenomenon was growing even before the Great Recession and has accelerated since. Yet, few can provide any information on the impact of internships, paid or unpaid, on the labor market or the wages and employment prospects of young people.

The US Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics provide the following data about internships:

SeniorWomen.com's Editor writes:

Let's look at one of the most sought-after categories of internships, that of a Congressional intern, most specifically the internships offered by Rep. Paul Ryan's office in the 1st Congressional District of Wisconsin and at his Washington, DC office. Ryan has been mentioned as a possible running mate for the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, Mitt Romney:

District Internship Information

If you are interested in interning in my Janesville District office, some of your duties may include:

• Assisting with the research and writing of constituent correspondence
• Assisting with our mobile office tours and listening sessions
• Cataloging newspaper articles, including clipping, organizing and scanning into the computer distribution system.
• Researching issues or agency policies
• Data assembly and entry into Internet Quorum Government data system
• Grant research

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