After hearing these numbers, I began to understand why Jessica felt lucky. Maybe she is fortunate to be earning $4.35 an hour at her ivory-tower job while she works nights and weekends as a waitress. Maybe a 10-month paid internship followed by graduate school and then perhaps another internship is the new lucky, particularly at a time when so many young people can’t find work at all.

Still, I wondered: Where was the anger at the injustice that a smart young woman couldn’t find a permanent job and had to keep prolonging her $4.35-an-hour internship? “I don’t think you can be angry,” Jessica says. “It’s just how it is. People older than me are struggling.” —The Week.