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Wall Street Forking Out Record Pay

Pay at top firms expected to hit $140B as markets rebound

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 14, 2009 5:36 AM CDT

(Newser) – Major financial firms have bounced back from the brink of meltdown and are on course to hand out their biggest-ever pay packages this year. The total payout at the big banks and securities firms will hit $140 billion this year, according to Wall Street Journal projections based on revenue figures at 23 companies. That's up 20% from last year, and is a full $10 billion more than was paid out in 2007.

Payouts might fall below projections at firms feeling public and political pressure over inflated bonuses, the Journal notes. But now that they've regained their confidence, most firms insist that high pay is necessary to hang on to their top talent. "The easiest way to destroy the firm would be if we didn't pay our people," said a Goldman Sachs spokesman. "Destroying a profitable enterprise would not be in anybody's interest."

[Images (5)]

[Quotes (1)]

People exit the the Financial Square building following a Goldman Sachs shareholders meeting in New York. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)

People walk to work on Wall Street in New York. This year's pay at top firms is predicted to be up 20% from 2008. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, file)

Happy days are here again for the big Wall Street firms. (©Photos8.com)

Wall Streeters are swimming in cash. (©borman818)

Payout packages at major banks and securities firms will hit $140 billion. (©gierszewski)

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Compensation played a role in the financial crisis, and yet nothing has changed. - University of Denver Professor
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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 5 comments

Snowleopard

Oct 14, 2009 11:37 AM CDT

This is a direct result of TARP and federal reserve policies that flooded wallstreet with credit, based on the trickle-down economics fallacy. If you saturate banks with easy money, it won't magically get credit flowing, it'll just make the banks rich. Most of the monetary expansion should have been done in the form of stimulus, so that it gave the working class jobs, and injected money into mainstreet. We're literally giving these banks money at next to zero percent interes, and then they've been turning around an buying foriegn T-Bills with that money at about 5% interest! No wonder income inequality is so bad in this country.

Shannonals

Oct 14, 2009 9:42 AM CDT

And yet no one ever goes after or investigates these banks. They would rather spend their time whinning about how the President won the Nobel prize rather than tackleing real issues

Rocket448

Oct 14, 2009 6:50 AM CDT

These guys are at the top of my list of people who just don't give a shit about anyone else. They have no idea what people think about them or their greed, and they just don't give a shit.

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Wall Street • executive compensation • Goldman Sachs • bank • financial institutions • executive bonuses

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Wall Street Forking Out Record Pay