Pedestrians walk past the New York Stock Exchange, Jan. 24, 2022, in 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, March 23, 2022. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
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.
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 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.
The comptroller 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,” DiNapoli 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.”
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