Another thing I find interesting about "PhD-employees" in the US is that we are considered students when it helps the government and employees when it helps the university. My main complaint has to do with the nature of taxing research/teaching/fellowship income as "income", and then turning around and not allowing those students to invest the money in IRA accounts (according to the tax code, any money eligible for IRA contributions must be on a single box on a W-2 form, which many students do not get)

This is deeply troubling to students like myself who would like to invest and save a significant part of our salary for the future, as we would if we were truly employees in industry.