I think some folks are missing a key point. A pilot’s liability is enormous, and the exposure to increased personal risk is also present. If you are not compensated for this liability and personal risk, you are being exploited. A turbojet pilot at F430 is soaking up about 100 times the sea level radiation exposure, and that isn’t even considering the polar routes during a solar flare.
Take the current court award value on a human life, and multiply times not only the number of passengers on your aircraft, but on the aircraft you share the airspace with. Add to that the number of lives in the cars on the road at the end of the runway, and in the buildings along your flight path. Know that longstanding legal practice is to sue the airline, airframe manufacturer, and pilot(or his or her estate) wholly and separately for the cumulative value of loss. The courts have attached pilot assets pending the outcome of lawsuits, and those assets include house, car, college funds, retirement, inheritance, and even life insurance payments. Some of these lawsuits have gone on for nearly a decade, with the pilots’ family having to petition the court just to gain access to frozen bank accounts simply to buy groceries. Flying boxes or biz-jets doesn’t help, look at the recent biz-jet collision with an airliner in Brazil…those boys were held for months overseas, and the case is far from over. Guess what, even if innocent those pilots have to pay their attorneys.
Is $50,000 enough to live on? In some cases, yes.
Is $50,000 fair compensation for a college graduate & experienced professional pilot living in a high cost of living area? No it is not, because it doesn’t cover training costs, liability risks, and physical risks unique to the profession.
Sometimes pilots are their own worst advocates, they "just want to fly".