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The Average Wall Street Bonus Decreased By 26% in 2022, According to a New Report It's the largest drop since the Great Recession.

By Gabrielle Bienasz

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor I Getty Images

Wall Street bonuses took a hit in 2022.

According to data analyzed by the New York State Comptroller, people employed in the "securities industry" in New York City saw their bonuses drop 26% — from an average of $240,400 in 2021 to $176,700 in 2022, Bloomberg reported.

Securities industry workers include people who participate in things taken on by large financial institutions — including underwriting securities and helping to buy and sell commodities or securities.

The comptroller's report said the total bonus pool for securities workers in 2022 was $33.7 billion, down from $42.7 billion the year prior. In addition to lamentable effects on the City's coffers, the decrease was "the largest drop since the Great Recession," according to the report.

Since 2008, the average bonuses for securities industry workers went up by 75.2%, left-leaning think tank the Institute for Policy Studies said in a report released Thursday that analyzed the Comptroller data and Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

"By contrast, average weekly earnings for all U.S. private sector workers increased by only 54.4 percent during this period," IPS wrote,

Gabrielle Bienasz is a staff writer at Entrepreneur. She previously worked at Insider and Inc. Magazine. 

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