Built 1954. Well maintained, so not really a rust bucket. Sold circa 1984.
1 Like
My first AMO tanker job in 2003 paid $60k annually for 180 days of work.
A friend at Polar Tanker’s was making low 80’s including an annual bonus for 180 days.
I’d say both of those salaries have doubled in 20 years to $120/$160. But that is not at all the same buying power as 1981/ $55k a year for 180 days.
2 Likes
Too many! The 60/30 was in the contract, but to quote Pirates of the Caribbean, “It’s really more of a guideline”. I think about 210 days +/-, but once I had a permanent 3/M slot in '98 I worked 60/30. Spent about 1/2 the year as temporary 2/M then.
1 Like
Was this in the early 90’s?
About $576 today BLS CPI adjusted, or what a very well paid AB seaman makes nowadays, or perhaps a beginning 3rd mate makes today.
Average house price 2003= $240,000.
Ratio of daily pay to house cost. 0.24%
Guess of actual 2024 pay: 120k/180=$666/ day, exceeding the CPI.
$240,800 CPI adjusted to 2024:$416,224.
median 2024 house price $420800. Pretty close to what CPI would predict, but more.
Present ratio 0.16%
So if the guess at 2024 pay is correct then the 3rd mate has more earnings power relative to the general CPI, but less compared to the cost of housing alone. A trend we see elsewhere in these comparisons.
I’m going to suggest that part of the reason the wages are not keeping up with housing costs in the relative sense is the strength of the US economy.
The US housing market is a stable investment for sovereign wealth funds. Foreign nations like to invest a lot of their wealth in US mortgages. The more they do the higher the cost of housing gets. Which is terrific if you own a house. But not if you’re trying to buy one. ( Feel free to disagree with any of this.)
I don’t disagree with you. I disagree that mortgages should be traded like securities or that massive hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds should be able to manipulate the market so forcefully. I think we all saw how this inevitably ends up in 2008 and yet here we are inflating another bubble. 
7 Likes
I agree. But it may be baked into the financial system now. Make MBS illegal, or unavailable to foreigners, and houses would become more affordable to Americans but less lucrative as a retirement investment .
Also, right now the house construction segment of the economy is almost an export economy, in the sense that foreigners are spending money on American mortgages, which tends to increase the number of houses made in the country, which increases labor in that sector.
Decrease the investments and the housing investment market becomes local/national. Does that mean construction jobs go up or down,? Do house carpenter wages go up or down?
A lot of rice bowls depend on MBS in the American house market.
I was intrigued by the post made by @DamnYankee, regarding the effect of the Operational Differential Subsidy on mariner’s wages in the past.
I went back to a Marad annual report from 2001, which shows the amount of ODS paid to mariners between 1937 and 2000.
Example: for the fiscal year 1961 the amount paid by the taxpayer to the industry as ODS was $169 million. Adjust that to today’s dollars that’s $1.8 billion. Split between 15 companies.
In 1981 the amount was $334 million ($1.2 billion in today’s dollars) divvied up among 53 companies.
The last big year for the ODS was $112 million in 1997(worth $220 million today). From there it dropped quickly. In the last year of the subsidy, 2000, it was down to $5 million ($9.2 million in 2024$), split between seven companies.
Not all of that money went to augment wages, of course. But taking @DamnYankee 's old skipper’s words at face value, you can see how the ODS was affecting wages up to about 1997.