South Africa has this problem in academia and to a order of magnitude worse.

Not only do you worry about your own small income; but grants, scholarships, registration fees and a myriad of other things have in recent times become volatile and can be taken away from year to year.

Most of the issues is due to 1) our government being corrupt and 2) promises the government made about free education.

I am not against free education, but I am against impoverished professors.

This is why I decided to side-step academia. It is delaying my PhD by probably 3–7 years (I am at year 2's start now) but it's better than having in theory 100% time spent on a PhD but actually worrying about the University and your peers, your own future, etc. in reality.