She started in Krakow, Poland. 2700 GBP/month is what the prime minister of Poland makes, it's an absurdly high salary for the local market there. I've friends who work as professional C++ programmers there and they make about 1000-1500 GBP/month working for huge corporations.
She worked on something completely different in Krakow, and earned a lot less (about 1000 euro I think). The compression work was in London, where 2700 GBP doesn't go a long way at all. Rent is about 1000 GBP for a room, and 2700 GBP is about 1800 net, so that leaves 800 GBP per month to spend on food, transportation and other expenditures.
I happen to know the person in the article. I was also an intern at Google this summer in Europe.
I don't know, I think you have to look at what is good for a certain area.
In Poland, ~1000EUR/4000PLN/month is more than what an accountant makes. Teachers never reach this salary, even with 30+ years of experience.
You can easily live very comfortably on that salary, if there's two of you making that money you can buy a house and pay it off within 10 years or build one.
Being paid that much as an intern is just unheard of, most people I know would trip over and faint if they heard this.
just want to point out that your link explicitly refutes your statement. They are not illegal and you linked to a test about legality of unpaid internships:
> There are some circumstances under which individuals who participate in “for-profit” private sector internships or training programs may do so without compensation.
Yes, there is a list of criteria in that section. This job fails to meet several of them, especially number 4: The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
"But whatever your moral leanings, a judge on Tuesday confirmed what intern advocates have been alleging for years: a lot of these programs are illegal."
"it's hard to predict what appeals court judges will rule on any of these cases."
