Apparently, Dodd-Frank and other financial sector regulations that Donald Trump is looking to roll back are not as crippling as the president suggests, at least when it comes to pay or profits.
The New York State comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, in his annual survey of financial sector pay, which came out on Wednesday, found that the average Wall Street made $388,000 last year, or five times the average of what workers in all other industries got paid. What’s more, DiNapoli found that profits on Wall Street rose 21% last year to $17 billion.
Donald Trump has called Dodd-Frank a disaster.
To be sure, the average bonus on Wall Street is still well down from the before the financial crisis, and is basically flat from where it was when Dodd-Frank was passed in 2010. Last year, the average bonus for Wall Street employees came out to $138,210, up 1% compared to 2015. But part of that was because Wall Street has been hiring. The securities industry added 2,800 jobs last year, bringing the sector’s total employment to 177,000, the highest level since the financial crisis, and about 5,000 higher than where it was when Dodd-Frank was adopted.
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The New York State comptroller’s survey is considered one of the best measures of how Wall Street salaries because it focuses on pay in the financial industry of people who work in the New York City area.
The sector plays a huge part in New York City’s economy. Although the industry accounts for less than 5% of all private sector jobs in the city, it’s responsible for more than 20% of all private sector wages. The average salary for the industry, including bonuses, was $388,000 as of 2015, compared to $74,000 for the rest of the private sector in the same region.