Compensation consultant says Wall Street year-end bonus pay could reach $23 billion, the highest since the financial crisis.
FORTUNE -- Well, this ought to make Henry Paulson very sad.
The nation's five biggest banks are on track to pay out $127 billion in total compensation, including at least $23 billion in bonuses, this year. That's up from the $114 billion the banks shelled out to their employees in 2009. It translates to $149,472 per full-time employee for 2013, and is roughly triple the pay of the average American. The figures come from financial filings and the calculations of a top Wall Street compensation consultant.
In an article in Tuesday's New York Times, Paulson said he was disappointed by the size of the bonuses banks paid in the wake of the financial crisis and subsequent bailout. The former Treasury Secretary says he was dismayed about the timing of the large 2009 bonuses. He believes the payouts turned the public against the government's Wall Street bailout, but I don't think it was ever that popular, bonuses or not.
Paulson has, at other times, more generally criticized Wall Street pay. In his book, On the Brink, Paulson said he would regularly "go off" in partner meetings at Goldman Sachs (GS), where he was the CEO before heading to the Treasury Department in 2006, about compensation. He told CNBC in 2010 that he used to tell fellow Goldmanites, "I hope you all understand . . . . people don't like you," when conversations about bonuses would come up. But Paulson took home nearly $102 million in his last three and a half years at Goldman, including a $18.7 million cash bonus for the first half of 2006 alone, so, you know, way to really set an example, Hank
The Times says banks paid $140 billion in bonuses in 2009. But the paper almost certainly means total compensation, including salary and benefits (the $114 billion previously cited is for the top five banks only). It also says that bonuses peaked in 2009, which, too, appears to be wrong. According to this table from the New York comptroller's office, Wall Street bonuses totaled $22.5 billion in 2009. That was down, again according to the NY comptroller, from 2006, when banks paid $34 billion. Last year, Wall Street firms paid out $20 billion in year-end payouts
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/08/28/wall-street-bonuses-2/?iid=HP_LN
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