> Example 1: Highschool dropout with no advanced education earning minimum wage; 23 years old:
Gross minimum wage for 23yo and above € 1424,40 per month, assuming a 40h workweek. Usually with paid overtime and some benefits depending on employer.
> Example 2: Student who excelled at high school until 18, completed bachelor at 21, completed master in science at 23, started PhD at 24:
Gross wage[1] €2000 per month, with realistically a 45h to 50h workweek. Better benefits and usually a 13th month. Intellectually more challenging work (probably), but few career possibilities in the academic field.
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Also you have to take into account that the grad student has to pay substantially more in taxes than the minimum wage employee. The difference was only 1.5x to start with, after taxes the PhD student will probably only earn 25% more than the minimum wage employee. Just for the record, I'm not arguing against education here, or even making any statement about whether it makes sense to do a PhD. Just adding some numbers because your message makes it seem like PhDs are well compensated given their intelligence and the work they have to put in. From my point of view they're ridiculously underpaid.
A few of my friends are grad students, and they all live in 600 square feet (55 meter squared) apartments. It kind of sucks to live a 600 square foot apartment until you're 29-30, with no substantial savings for a down-payment on a house for after you graduate.
Source 1: https://intranet.tudelft.nl/live/pagina.jsp?id=91ae4d5c-5d21...
This is a bit less than one would earn going into business immediately, but it buys you a lot of freedom. The education/research split is 0.2/0.8 FTE. There are specific goals with respect to the research project, but other than that there is plenty of time to pursue your interests.
Our university tried to implement a scholarship/bursary system, which was not welcomed by potential Dutch PhD candidates. Foreign candidates do not seem to mind as much, since such scholarships are common in other countries. In my opinion, the scholarship system was a bad move, since pursuing a PhD becomes less attractive to the best of students, due to higher wages in the industry. In the end the scholarship system was shot down by the court (they see a PhD as a normal employment), and seems to have vanished for the time being.
Conclusion: you get what you pay for. Higher PhD candidate wages equals less PhDs, but more high-quality PhDs. With lower wages or scholarships universities can have more PhD candidates, but you will probably lose out on talent who'd rather go to the industry, and the PhD population has a miserable life (low income, long working hours).