Employees in the securities industry on New York's Wall Street in the United States received bonuses averaging 400 million won last year.
According to data released by the New York Inspector General's Office led by Thomas DiNapoli on the 26th (local time), the average bonus for Wall Street securities industry employees last year was $246,900 (about 370 million won), up 6% from a year earlier.
Wall Street's aggregates for total bonuses came to $49.2 billion (about 74 trillion won), up 9% from the previous year.
Major Wall Street financial firms expanded revenue by brokering leveraged trades for hedge funds and others as global financial markets showed volatility following U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff policy release.
Inspector General DiNapoli said, "Despite persistent domestic and international uncertainty last year, Wall Street posted strong results for most of the year."
However, the scale of employment fell slightly. The number of Wall Street securities industry workers declined from 201,500 in 2024 to 198,200 last year.
While New York's status as the financial capital remains intact, its share of U.S. securities industry employment has fallen from about one-third in 1990 to 17.9% in 2024.
Including bonuses, the average annual salary in New York City's securities industry was $505,677 (about 760 million won) in 2024, up 7.3% from the year before.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) analyzed that last year's growth rate in bonuses did not meet the level reflected in New York City's forecast for tax revenue in the fiscal year 2026. Because Wall Street workers have a high proportion of bonuses in their total pay, swings in bonuses also have a large impact on New York State's income tax revenue.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has argued that tax hikes on the wealthy are unavoidable to close the roughly $5.4 billion budget deficit that occurred during former Mayor Eric Adams' tenure.