Eh, you could probably say that for a lot (most?) of specialties out there. How many medical students pick up the phone and start haggling with insurance companies so they'd cover X medication or Y surgery or Z imaging? I always encourage students to speak to staff, not residents, about their perspectives of a given field.
Just like anything else it depends. Are there people out there working less and making more doing something different? Of course, but that's true for every person out there not named Jeff Bezos. But subjectively I work less and make about the same as most of my surgical colleagues with the added bonus that when I get home I don't have to worry about ER consults, calls from my NP about chest tube output, a resident letting me know a patient needs to be opened up for an uncontrolled bleed, or a patient calling because they ran out of Percocet and can't deal with the pain. I don't have to hoof it to PCPs or ERs looking for consults to fill my clinic to so I can cover my overhead. I have a good home life and generally enjoy work - that's more than a lot of the population in this country. My neurosurgeon neighbor growing up absolutely killed it doing spines and what not, but he was a miserable dude with 3 ex wives and allimony/child support payments that kept him working well into his 70s - he was the first to say he wished he had never done surgery when I saw him a few years ago and was envious of my career choice.
That is a great gig! But our hospital-employed hospitalists start at 150K (not including benefits). I saw a little higher in training, but I am sure this is regional. Still get 7 on 7 off, though. But you have to be a hospitalist and do dispo all the time.