Wall Street Bonuses Up 17%

Don't you love the media trumpeting the 17% increase in bonuses? Greedy Wall Street, while Main Street suffers Wall Street lives high on the hog. Of course our media commentators conveniently forget that the previous year Wall Street took a 40% hit.

Deepening financial crisis has hit hard the employees of Wall Street, whose yearly bonuses were down 44 per cent in 2008, and that in turn hit the New York state, which would lose USD one billion in tax revenues.

A report issued by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli on Wednesday showed that New York City employees' bonuses last year were USD 18.4 billion, down from USD 33 billion in 2007.

The decline will cost New York City USD 275 million, he said.
Wall Street employees’ bonus dips 40%

A 17% increase from 18.4 billion means that Wall Street bonuses for this past year was roughly 21.5 billion. This means that over a two year period Wall Street bonuses are down roughly 35%. And of course NYC tax revenues are still down over 200 million.