First real paycheck? Most of the FOs I know took a pretty big pay cut to come to the airlines from whatever they were doing before. I made more flight instructing than both first and 2nd year pay at the airlines. I've met other people who came from jobs outside of aviation who took much larger pay cuts than I did.

That might be part of the problem too though. People are used to living one way, then take a massive pay cut and don't make sacrifices, or didn't have any money saved up to deal with the pay cut.