Wall Street Bonuses

The Institute for Policy Studies looked at the bonuses paid to Wall Streeters for 2016. Some conclusions:

The total bonus pool for 177,000 Wall Street employees was 1.6 times the combined annual earnings of all 1,075,000 U.S. full-time minimum wage workers. 

The average Wall Street bonus increased by 1 percent last year to $138,210. Since 1985, the nominal value of the average Wall Street bonus has increased 890 percent, whereas the minimum wage has risen only 116 percent.

The 2016 bonus pool held enough dollars to lift the pay of any one of these groups of low-wage workers up to $15 per hour:

• all of the country’s 3.1 million restaurant servers and bartenders, 
• all 1.7 million home health and personal care aides, or 
• all 3.2 million fast food preparation and serving workers.