What I find interesting about this pay argument is that as educated individuals that embark on this career in aviation will have done the research to understand the various pathways to their dream job.
Part of that research is knowing what the payscale is likely to be for the first few years, yet when they arrive at that point, there is this outrage and uproar that the pay isn't good enough for what we do. This hasn't exactly crept up on you, the information is open source.
Short of contracting in China, the US legacy carriers are probably the best paid pilots in the world and if you constantly compare your salary with those, then there will be differences. In the same way someone embarking on a medical career will be paid substantially less than a top plastic surgeon.
If money is your goal, then the regional's are a pathway in my view.