There’s a whole meme in blind about aerospace engineers earning peanuts. Not sure if there are too many wanna be astronauts or just the nature of finances when primary customer is the gov. Even SpaceX is supposed to pay only soso!
There are more Aerospace Engineers that want to build the greatest latest rockets than there are positions so they have to settle for lower pay.
And working on planes is a lot of contract work so the job situation isn't ideal.
Picking a boring field is definitely a path to job stability.