Your wages aren't artificially low, they are just low, based on the supply/demand curve and the lowest pay pilots will accept without taking a job at the mall. That situation is normal in any industry when there are more applicants than jobs. Another thing that is normal is that when there is a shortage of applicants, pay goes up, until the supply of applicants increases and things stabilize. How much do you think pay will have to go up until the pilot supply again matches the demand? That is what has economists in this industry worried, that mechanism doesn't work in this industry, the supply is not able to respond to higher incentives driven by demand. The only limit to how high pay can go is how much an employer can financially justify, versus parking planes and turning down customers with cash.

The bottom rungs are where things will happen the fastest, this isn't a business that can wait around making airplane payments while competitors swoop in on their passengers. The internet has made pilot hiring into a universal marketplace, the highest pay in the country will get pilots, whether it is corporate or airline or blimps.