Unless you're hiring someone fresh out of school, they've likely had some experience in the job market and base their expectations of salary and conditions on that.

It's not really a sense of entitlement if I can point to similar positions x, y, and z and ask why you're not offering the same, is it?

Expectations, whether or not you find them realistic, are not created in a vacuum. I can't pay my mortgage or feed my kids on a "pre-money equity-only" job. Taking a deep pay cut for a stake in NewCo? Been there before - at the end of the day, 5% of nothing is still nothing.

If you're looking for someone who is willing to take a big risk for very little (immediate) reward, you aren't looking for an employee, you're looking for another co-founder.