I think the wording is crucial on this point, yes. I’m open to terms like “earned”, or “justifies”.

“Deserves” has moral connotations to it. As we see now in the US, it’s extremely dangerous to associate moral qualities with economic outcomes.

Also, my original objection was to the question, “Is every human equal?” There, I have no semantic qualifiers - all humans are created equal, and deserve equal rights. Full stop.