What is a livable wage with those numbers? In 10 years they will be poverty level wages. Perhaps 20 years ago those numbers provided someone with ample income. Additionally 40 a year may be livable to one person, not livable to another and yet the next guy may be living high off the hog with no complaints. The market sets the wage and the market is the interaction between the pilot and the company management. You could write an entire book on this and people have. So until pilots in appreciable numbers decide that 22 an hour is not worth it to them the wage will stay suppressed.

A Company under the financial system put in place here will always be in a state of reacting. It is this reacting that causes the wage increase to lag far behind the rate of inflation. This reduces our standard of living every year. Primarily they react to devaluation of the currency and in the case of an airline that means reacting to higher fuel prices. A company will do what a company does and that is to maximize profits. So who should come in and fix the wage level to whats "fair" for the employee. The only organization that can do that is the government and this causes widespread unemployment and always has.

I personally would rather live in a society where there is very low unemployment, a stable currency worth its original value and low regulation. Maybe then we would have a "livable" wage and a higher standard of living / QOL.