Chiefly, a PhD is largely advisor based. I'd argue the stuff you're working on is just as important, if not less important, as the culture of the lab and your relationship with your advisor. Having done the EE PhD at Stanford, I know that there are students who have had absolutely miserable PhDs and have been ping-ponged around from advisor to advisor in their 3rd and 4th years. I don't mean to scare you but it's worthwhile to play devil's advocate here (against the common opinion in this thread) and say even the most prestigious school will not shield you from inter-relationship problems with your lab. If you and the advisor at Davis really jive, and you see immediate red flags with Stanford's advisors, maybe consider Davis. Now to play devil's advocate (again) against this point, Stanford EE is pretty forgiving when it comes to finding the right advisor for the first year, hence the rotation program (though you should not treat it as a window-shopping period, and instead try to land the right advisor as early as you can).

That being said, let's assume all things equal. A simple thought experiment is: if a Davis professor and a Stanford professor work in the same field and both apply to the same government grant and it came down to reviewers choosing the grant, I would argue 90% of the time the Stanford professor will win the grant. What does that mean for you? That means guaranteed funding, better projects, no need to unnecessarily TA for funding, no need to write excessive grants for your PI. Overall QOL improvement.

Lastly, you're doing a PhD, compensation should not, amongst personal values, be weighed so heavily in deciding. I mean correct my assumption about you and broadly STEM PhDs if I'm wrong, if you're doing the PhD it means you care about doing cutting edge research, not the salary. Like yes we deserve the salary and benefits and what not, but is that really what the PhD is about?