The average bonus on Wall Street topped $184,000 last year.
NEW YORK — Wall Street bonuses are climbing toward record highs again, according to government data released Monday showing that in 2017, the average bonus payout reached $184,220.
That is an 17 percent increase compared with the previous year and the closest Wall Street has come in more than a decade to its all-time high of $191,360 in 2006, according to the New York State Comptroller. That follows an 15 percent increase in 2016, when the average bonus was about $157,660.
The bigger bonuses reflect a revival on Wall Street as the Trump administration begins rolling back financial industry regulations. The recent sell-off in the markets is creating the kind of volatility that Wall Street traders thrive on. And the Federal Reserve has begun raising a key interest rate, making it easier for banks to make a profit. The financial industry’s revenue increased 4.5 percent last year to $153 billion, according to the New York State Comptroller.
The government figures also continue to reflect how much more Wall Street executives earn compared to the rest of the private sector. Including bonuses, the average Wall Street salary was $375,200 in 2016, the most recent year available, five times as high as the rest of the private sector, with an average of $74,800, according to the comptroller’s office. In New York City, about 25 percent of the industry’s employees took home more than $250,000, compared with 2 percent in the rest of the city’s workforce, the report said.
“The large increase in profitability over the past two years demonstrates that the industry can prosper with the regulations and consumer protections adopted after the financial crisis,” Thomas DiNapoli, the New York comptroller.
The larger bonus pool was due, in part, to the sweeping changes to the tax code passed last year that encouraged some banks to accelerate some pay and bonuses, industry experts said. Banks are expected to be among the biggest beneficiaries of lowering the corporate tax rate to 21 percent.