Wall Street wages have increased at a much higher rate than the wages for the rest of the US, especially during the nineties. One could possibly argue that it’s because Wall Streeters have been working harder since that time, or that they’re becoming more and more valuable to society as time passes. But since Wall Street was at the heart of the financial crisis, which caused millions of people to lose millions collectively, and since Wall Street inflated the housing bubble, we think that people should seriously question whether Wall Street deserves such heightened compensation.
We should question whether Wall Street wages are at the the level they should be, or whether perhaps they’ve been inflated. It should be obvious what we think on the issue. For more, read this post about Wall Street and Main Street. The post contains this stinging quote from Sheila Bair, former FDIC chair:
[Wall Street] create incentives for banks to come up with an endless array of complex “structured” financial products to meet investors’ insatiable demand for return. Just how many jobs did all of those CDOs-squared give us anyway?
Also see the source for the chart, with further clarification: “[The graph] displays the relative wage in finance in the Tri-State Area (New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut), where “Wall Street” employees are likely to generate income, together with the relative wage of finance in the rest of the United States.”
