Notably, these are NOT “absurdly smart and conscientious people” as those actually bother to get their PhDs in a more reasonable timeframe. When someone is an ABD for multiple years it’s a bad sign.
It depends. In my phd program, tons of people stayed on longer in order to boost their publication records to be more competitive for jobs. Either way, after an average length phd + 1 postdoc (in some subfields of physics, especially theory, two postdocs is often the norm to be competitive for tenure track jobs), you are talking about a person with 9 yeas of experience in research making less than 60k a year.
It depends. In my phd program, tons of people stayed on longer in order to boost their publication records to be more competitive for jobs. Either way, after an average length phd + 1 postdoc (in some subfields of physics, especially theory, two postdocs is often the norm to be competitive for tenure track jobs), you are talking about a person with 9 yeas of experience in research making less than 60k a year.