Wall Street bonuses soared to record high $257,500 last year
New York — Soaring profits on Wall Street helped drive up the average bonus paid to employees in New York City's securities industry to a record $257,500 for last year, the state comptroller reported Wednesday.
The average securities industry bonus was 20% higher than 2020 and came out of a bonus pool that grew to $45 billion, according to annual estimates from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. Bonuses for 2020 also set a record at the time, having jumped 25% from the previous year despite the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
DiNapoli cited pretax profits through the first three quarters of 2021 for broker/dealer operations on the New York Stock Exchange, which increased by 19.6% to $44.9 billion. The jump in earnings for Wall Street firms was boosted by low interest rates, record market for initial public offerings and surging fees.
The securities industry accounts for one-fifth of private sector wages in New York City, despite comprising 5% of private sector employment. The industry also accounted for 18% of state tax collections and 7% of city tax collections in the governments' 2021 fiscal years, according to DiNapoli.
What Wall Streeters make
In terms of employment, Wall Street has shrunk slightly in recent decades, the comptroller's report shows. In 2021, 180,000 people worked in the securities industry in New York, down 10% from its peak in 2000. Yet pay has continued to grow.
In 2020, the average salary for securities professionals, including bonus, was $438,370 — nearly five times the average annual pay of $92,315 for the rest of the private sector in New York. In 1981, average compensation in the securities industry was roughly twice the rest of the private sector.
DiNapoli said that recent events could drive down near-term profitability and bonus payments.
"Markets are turbulent as other sectors' recovery remains sluggish and uneven, and Russia wages an inexcusable war on Ukraine's freedom," he said in a prepared statement. "In New York, we won't get back to our pre-COVID economic strength until more New Yorkers and more sectors — retail, tourism, construction, the arts and others — enjoy similar success."
