It looks like it's getting harder and harder for Wall Streeters to achieve that coveted four-pack—today it was revealed that Wall Street bonuses went down for the second straight year. To clarify, the bonuses went down to an average of $146,200 (in securities), to a total of roughly $25 billion for employees in New York. That's what you get for not taking the civil service exam like your mother told you.
Of course, the Times points out that this bonus decline is not merely cause for the world's tiniest violin, since Wall Street contributes quite a bit of cash to the state’s annual tax revenue. According to the Washington Post, the financial sector is struggling with falling industry profits, and 2016's outlook isn't very good either. Wall Streeters are worried, apparently, that things will just get worse. "We were all too optimistic for the last four or five years that the global economy would get better," Alan Johnson, managing director of pay consultant Johnson Associates, told the paper.
Still, it's hard to weep for Wall Street, where average annual salaries hit a record high of $404,800 in 2014. The median household income in the Unites States that year, by the way, was $53,657, and that doesn't even include any sexy shoe shines.
