This is absolutely not true in my experience. I've taken pay cuts on job hops twice in 41 years of full time employment: once to switch from stress analysis in aerospace to C programming, once after I took a voluntary layoff. The latter was a contract job, which doesn't mix well with getting divorced. Every other job hop has gotten me a substantial raise.

Yes, my experience is similar.

But even if (for the sake of argument) we grant that it doesn't lead to more income, it unquestionably can lead to a better job at the same income level.

I hadn't even considered a better job at the same level.

That makes me ask the question "why does WSJ want to discourage Jon hopping?"

You missed the /sarky at the end.