Meaning as determined by salary strikes me a particularly perverse method of determining personal meaning or broader value to society. It seems fairly close to the prosperity gospel, where a person is deemed to be in god's favor as divined by looking at a person's wealth. Prosperity gospel has some very nasty corollaries, such as that poor people do not have god's favor, and lacking god's favor must be evil. Or in your terms, they lack meaning in their life or value to society.