Actually Crank, 17.3 hours a week flight time at EAA or SSA is 34 hours duty, as the flight/duty time ratio is about 1:2. With rosters that give you 8 days off a month, 2 of which are single days, and you get to work 6 days in a row, and you get a shift worker's lifestyle (odd hours) I can think of a huge number of jobs that pay more than 50k. And they're all ones that don't cost you 100k to train yourself to get.
The "up and comers", as you put it, would be well advised to be well informed before making sweeping statements that pilots get paid 50k for 17 hours work a week.