For a “typical” person...it absolutely is. Maybe not for his particular situation, but the next poster asked if that was “typical”. Besides, how is someone not eligible for retention bonus? Upgraded to CA perhaps? Great...then their hourly wage now makes up the difference.

Fight it all you want. The “typical” person makes more than $31k. And yes, per diem is a part of compensation. Or shall we have the company take it away in the next contract since it isn’t a wage. You are spending money that the company is then reimbursing, which means that no matter how you slice it that is a form of income. You are literally trying to make this job sound worse than it is, which is pretty much all that happens on APC.