The big graph in the middle, which drives the argument that you're somebody's bitch for two decades as a postdoc before making it on your own is driven by NIH d

The big graph in the middle, which drives the argument that you're somebody's bitch for two decades as a postdoc before making it on your own is driven by NIH data. How is the situation for other fields of research & sources of funding? Looking as the total US DoD budget, as they're winding down from 2 foreign wars is a non sequitur when talking about research funding. Just looking at federal R&D funding ( http://www.proposalexponent.com/federalprofiles.html http://www.proposalexponent.com/federalprofiles.html ) things are going strong - even DoD funding is well above Cold War Levels. Anecdotally, of the people I remember from grad school, most of them moved on from post-doc work after 3-4 years. While not the same as becoming PI for a large grant, there's a pretty big gap between 4 and 20 years. While it's not a career that you'll get obscenely rich pursuing, it's nowhere near the level of lifelong poverty that the article is suggesting. Once you consider the excellent retirement benefits, work environment and unparalleled stability of a tenured position, it's a comfortable life. It's not for everyone but there's no reason to avoid it.