( CNN ) -- President Barack Obama knows we live in a two-tiered America . In July , the president , who is himself an example of how anyone can or should be able make it in the Land of the Free , went on the road to make the point over and over again that the nation 's widening gap between rich and poor is tearing at the very fabric of society . `` Even though our businesses are creating new jobs and have broken record profits , '' the president said in prepared remarks delivered in Illinois , `` nearly all the income gains of the past 10 years have continued to flow to the top 1 % . '' `` I will seize any opportunity I can find , '' he told The New York Times later that month , `` to work with Congress to strengthen the middle class , improve their prospects , improve their security . '' Any opportunity ? OK , then . Here 's one : How about paying your interns ? As Emily Jane Fox , a former unpaid White House intern herself , reports for CNNMoney , the White House is coming under pressure from groups like the Fair Pay Campaign to pay the college students who work 9-to-6 jobs ( at least ) for no money . Fox told me it cost her `` a couple thousand dollars '' to take a White House internship in 2010 . `` Think about it , '' she said . `` You 're there for three months . You 're relocating to a new city . You have to pay rent . You have to pay transportation costs to and from the White House . '' Plus : She had to buy a suit . Ca n't afford an internship ? Try asking for donations . `` You have to be able to afford to be a White House intern . '' Maybe intern pay and the health of the middle class , on first glance , seem unrelated . I saw a few tweets saying it 's no big thing that the White House does n't pay interns . `` No . It 's called 'paying your dues , ' '' one woman wrote . `` Give school credit or something ! '' But internships are an important ( maybe essential ) part of the modern rÃ©sumÃ© . Without one , it 's difficult to find some of the most desirable and high-paying jobs . Fox , for example , said her White House internship has come up in pretty much every job interview she 's done . And she says it probably got her into graduate school . Potential interns who ca n't cough up thousands of dollars in living expenses are left out of the mix , or have a much harder time making the situation livable , meaning the best internships and the best jobs are more likely to go to the upper middle class and rich . It 's just one of many ways middle-class and poor Americans are being left behind in the age of income inequality . The system seems rigged to ensure that wealthier Americans have a much better chance at success than their poorer counterparts . There are always great rags-to-riches examples that defy this trend . Our pop culture eats that stuff up . But statistics paint a more sobering picture : Only 9.5 % of kids born into the bottom income quintile in Washington will rise to the top fifth of earners , according to a recent study from Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley . The numbers are even worse in cities like Memphis and Atlanta . With college expenses skyrocketing and internships offering young workers little or no compensation , it 's no wonder it 's becoming more difficult to climb out of poverty and into the middle class . `` When the rungs on the ladder of opportunity grow farther and farther apart , it undermines the very essence of America . '' Yep , that 's Obama , again . The White House is n't alone in offering an unpaid internship program -- and internships are far from being responsible for America 's gap between rich and poor . Opinion : You do n't have to be an unpaid intern . ( CNN , for those who are wondering , does pay its interns ) . But the executive branch could use this opportunity to make a statement about equality of opportunity in America by offering paid internships , as many others do . Not everybody can be like Google , which , according to the site Glassdoor.com , pays some interns $ 6,800 per month . But look at the news site ProPublica , which made headlines when it started a Kickstarter page to raise $ 22,000 to hire an intern to write stories about internships . There are ways to make this work financially . And to be fair . Meanwhile , the Fair Pay Campaign is right to point out the hypocrisy of the Obama Administration lobbying for a higher minimum wage while paying some of its young workers nothing at all . The president can set an important example on this . Hard work should be rewarded with fair pay . And the playing field for new workers should be as level as possible . Otherwise , we 're just encouraging the rich-poor gap to grow . The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of John D. Sutter .
CNNMoney reports interns at the White House are unpaid . John Sutter : Unpaid internships contribute America 's rich-poor gap . He says the White House should set a better example for other employers . Sutter : `` ... we 're just encouraging the rich-poor gap to grow ''