So, here's my take on this: hourly wages don't really matter in a field that does long-hour shifts anyway, but what does matter is compensation overall, and hourly wages are an easy incomplete way to measure that.
In any industry, there's tiers of jobs. For convenience, I label them 1-4.
Tier 1 is entry-level. They're jobs that pay enough to live comfortably with your parents, but to make it on your own, you're either a monk or cost-sharing. Minimum-wage, long hours, reliant on overtime, etc. Practically all non-Fire EMT jobs fall into this. Low pay, no job security, etc.
Tier 2 is the AMR/Acadian/entry-level independent living, where you make "enough to get by". It's usually paramedic-level. Apartment, car, etc. This is where I lived and most paramedics are- I can afford to live independently modestly, but supporting a family would be very challenging. Most damning though is the lack of job security and realistic retirement option. You can usually start at a Tier-2 if you're not terminally insecure or objectionable.
Tier 3 is the "good" places- career places. Pay north of 50k a year, stable and secure, real pension and benefit plans, etc. They don't want the cost of training new recruits and are hard to get on with fresh out of school, but are worth the effort- career places. High-end AMR, Hall, etc and most non-horrible government services get here.
Tier 4 is where unicorns live. Speedboats, mansions, houses, etc. LA County Fire, CCFD, critical-care RN, PA, etc. Family, Jesus, and luck with a lot of hard work get you here.
The thing is that employers like looker are, by their own decisions, limited to the market they target- kind of like "dress for the job you want", "pay for the market you want". Places that pay minimum wage for EMT and argue over whether or not to pay every hour at work are never going to go away, but they're one audit away from bankruptcy themselves and by definition cannot attract enough of the right people to ever be more than a taxi. looker Ambulance might be a great animal in its chosen environment, but it can't compete outside of it and is exceedingly vulnerable to any changes. Looker knows this and accepts that risk, and continues to accept it by Scrooging hard. As a side effect, his short-term savings lock out potentially lucrative sources of income like county 911 contracts, etc. He relies on a steady flow of fresh blood to live.
Tier 2 services are where most of us are or have started. It's "just enough", but these places are paradoxically limited to what they do now by their lack of willingness to invest in their people and their cost-focused approach to everything and a reliance on expansion and key contracts to support the whole ediface. They actually lock themselves out of markets by underserving their clients and customers and create that underservice by skimping on pay, excitement and quality. A perfect example is Acadian Texas. They market themselves to clients and prospective employees as the cat's own ***- CCT, ESOP, etc and flashy equipment, acronyms and schemes. They then introduce a host of factors that make it less acceptable- byzantine and archaic PTO and multiple pay rates, cost-sharing, lower incidence of 911 vs BLS transfer, etc from the employee's view (driving employees away and destroying retention and potential growth until it becomes a standard or requirement), and illusory or absent ambulance coverage or inadequate capabilities from the client's perspective. At a higher cost than Tier-1, but with sporadic and generally-crappy coverage, communities eventually build a Tier 3 if they care. Tier 2 is dependant on the same flow of new people that looker gets, but is trying to compete with everyone for everything and loses as many as it wins.
Tier 3 places aren't flashy. They aren't loud, if anything, they're low-key. But they're low-key because they're busy pushing the boundaries of what can be done. They can afford to run a little more aggressively because they can recruit and attract better people and more ambitious people who won't justifiably quit at the first better option and keep them longer.
Tier-4 does whatever it wants, because Tier-4 takes Vacation in Tahiti this quarter. You don't leave a T4 unless you die or retire or win the lottery.
It does happen, but don't get upset if the other person doesn't share your view.