Depends on where you live. A WWTP operator can make around $60-70k. That alone ain't great, but yes, the benefits are usually quite good, and if the earner is a member of a two-worker household (spouse has a job making, say, $50k), you're at $110-120k, and in a mid-sized city, that's decent. E.g., the median household income in Waco is around $50k. Even in a big city like Houston, median is $62k. A WWTP operator job alone can put you above median income, and can put you on track to being materially above median household income (double that) if you have another mildly decent earner in the house.
You're not taking fancy vacations or driving high-end cars, but the baseline of having a secure roof over your head, no food insecurity, good basic healthcare, enough money for clothing and some of the nicer basics (furniture, TV, cell phones) is a pretty decent life. I mean....I guess I look at the kind of life I was born into and had for my first few years of life, and it looked a lot like that. And to my mother -- who had grown up in abusive households, and then when her mom fled, a brutally poor household that survived with the help of gov't assistance and charity -- our little life in a tract home, where we could afford to buy meat for most meals, and I could have some new toys, was the American damned dream. Her perspective made a lifelong impression on me.