Commercial pilot here: can vouch for much of the above statement, at least for a lot of the airline pilot population that has been flying for less than 10-12 years (I.e. Lower on the seniority list for their respective airline).

I wouldn't say "complete joke" at all, but some things have changed over the years. Some good and some bad.

-up until this last year pilots (especially regional airline pilots) were worked hard but not paid what you'd think. Several airlines started their pay at $17-$22/hour; while that sounds great, we are paid per hour of flight time. Not paperwork. Not preflight. Not until we push back from the gate. Also, we don't work nearly the 40 hours per week an average 9-5'er does and we are only guaranteed on average 65-75 hours per month depending on our specific company's employment contracts set up by pilot unions (which is a whole separate topic in itself). This averages about 1,000 flight hours per year give or take. While it's possible to pick up trips that pay double or fly more trips/hours in general... It's hard to live on $17-20K per year in a big city.

To be fair, the pilot salaries have slowly started to rise a bit which is great. And there are some killer work benefits. But there is definitely a 5-10 year period of paying your dues and flying weekends/holidays before you rise in seniority.

With that being said, I couldn't imagine doing anything else. And almost any pilot you talk to will feel the same. We're passionate AF about what we do and take pride in our jobs.