When Mary Margaret Vojtko died last September—penniless and virtually homeless and eighty-three years old, having been referred to Adult Protective Services because the effects of living in poverty made it seem to some that she was incapable of caring for herself—it made the news because she was a professor.
The story of Mary Margaret Vojtko is more complicated than it seems on first glance. Vojtko was a hoarder who rebuffed numerous attempts by others to reach out and help. Among other things, she refused to let a repairman fix her boiler because she didn't want anyone disturbing her house. Yes, she was paid poorly and had no benefits, but there were other factors at work.
Once you get below the very top, the GP is basically right, all the way down to at least liberal arts institutions (at community colleges, the situation is again different). I'm an associate professor of mathematics at a very good but not absolute top university (Waterloo). All associate professors here have tenure. I make north of 10k gross per month, although perhaps not well north. I'm very happy where I am. I could make more money in private industry, but tenure is worth more to me than the salary difference. In more technical fields than mathematics (such as computer science or engineering), the salaries are higher, as they have to be, to compete with Google and engineering firms.
All of the above applies to tenure-track professors only. Contingent faculty positions are much more financially precarious.
Where is your evidence that Dolly is not a real clone? If Wikipedia doesn't mention the allegation, it's not even a conspiracy theory.
The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse time. -- Merrick Furst