Top executives, analysts, and traders on Wall Street are receiving astronomical bonuses, as reported in multiple news outlets. Bloomberg News says these bonuses aren’t just six figures, not even seven figures, these are EIGHT figure bonuses ranging up to $30 million for the upper echelon of Wall Street.
These executives would claim that these bonuses were a long time coming. They’ll say that it is necessary on Wall Street for top talent to receive bonuses of this magnitude in order to reflect their value.
According to Bloomberg, while Goldman Sachs did spend about 23% more per employee in 2021, they also invested about 50% more into their top “dealmakers.”
Federal regulators have been for years attempting to rein in the massive bonuses on Wall Street as laid out in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.
Twelve years later there has been no change and these lavish bonuses have rained down on bankers before and even after federal bailouts.
Sarah Bloom Raskin, an attorney and regulator who previously served as US Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, is the current White House Nominee for the Federal Reserve’s Vice Chairmanship. She says there needs to be a crackdown on these lavish multi-million-dollar bonuses as written into the Dodd-Frank Act.
During a time when so many retirees and workers are struggling to make ends meet, these Wall Street titans have seemingly brought back the Gilded Age of the 19th century robber barons.
We should keep in mind that these same Wall Street leaders are very often the advisors and facilitators for the companies that once employed us. These bankers are influencers over corporate America and its leadership.
While the average employee at Verizon makes about $50,000 annually, according to human resource company Indeed.com, in 2020 the CEO made $19.1 million between salary, benefits, and bonus.
All of this is another reminder as to why our retiree Proxy campaigns are so instrumental. By pursuing change via the Proxy, we can hold corporate leadership accountable.
Fellow retirees, if we don’t look out for ourselves no one else will. Your Association always stays on top of news and developments like this to keep a close eye on the issues and trends and make sure that we are not forgotten.