Wall Street made it rain last year as a resurgent year for dealmaking gave financial services firms a much-needed boost.
Now, a report from the Office of the New York State Comptroller shows that those same rainmakers might not have much need for their umbrellas this year. Dealmaking has sputtered and stalled so far in 2025.
In 2024, Wall Street bonuses paid between December and March jumped 34%, to $47.5 billion, the highest total on record, and up from a total pool of $35.4 billion last year, according to the new report. The average bonus for employees in New York City's securities industry rose to $244,700, up 31.5% from the year before, the report — based on Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's annual estimate — found.
For comparison, the bonus pool for New York City's securities industry in 2023 totaled $33.8 billion. It trailed previous highs like 2021's $42.7 billion, which capped off a year of frenzied dealmaking. The average individual bonus in 2023 was $176,500, down 2% from the previous year's $180,000.
The average Wall Street bonus, per DiNapoli's report, is about four times the typical US wage of $66,621, according to 2023 figures (the most recently available) from the Social Security Administration.
This year's gains — which lifted Wall Street's profits by some 90%, the report noted — were driven by strong economic growth, which boosted trading, underwriting, and deal-making activity that swept the industry. The industry's elevated bonus year is set to generate an additional $600 million in state income tax revenue and $275 million more for the city itself compared with 2023's bonus comp, DiNapoli projects.
To compile his annual report, DiNapoli's office evaluates personal income tax withholding trends, as well as cash bonuses paid for work performed in 2024 or previous years that have just been redeemed. Employees outside of New York City are excluded from the assessment.
As Business Insider has previously reported, multiple large banks already communicated bonuses to staffers in January. BI also published the results of another report from the recruiting firm Prospect Rock Partners about investment bankers' 2024 bonuses, based on 900 survey participants' responses.
Smashing records, flashing red lights
The stronger bonus year smashed several records, including the highest year for incentive comp in Wall Street's history, the report said, and marked the bonus pool's "first major increase since the COVID-19 pandemic highs."
Individual banks reported heightened profits last year as the defibrillator of dealmaking helped get the industry's blood pumping once again. Goldman Sachs, for instance, reported total revenue of $53.5 billion last year, up from $46.3 billion the year prior, in its fourth-quarter earnings release in January. JPMorgan Chase, America's biggest bank by assets, said its net income last year was $58.5 billion, up from $49.6 billion the year before.
But, the comptroller noted, there are some warning signs that the reasons to celebrate may be fleeting.
"Increasing uncertainty in the economy amid significant federal policy changes may dampen the outlook for parts of the securities industry in 2025," DiNapoli warned.
In recent weeks, the industry's dreams of a sustained dealmaking rebound have been upended as the corporate sector metabolizes some of the convulsive policy shifts and tariff threats of President Donald Trump's administration. According to the London Stock Exchange Group's most recent investment banking scorecard, published earlier this month, US mergers and acquisitions activity amounted to nearly $271 billion since the start of the year — down 24% compared with the same period in 2024.
The comptroller's report included other findings — including a slight uptick in the total number of financial services sector jobs in New York City. The comptroller's office identified an increase in the total number of securities industry jobs based in New York City in 2024 of roughly 1.6% versus the year prior: 201,500 jobs in 2024, up from 198,400 in 2023.
As a result, securities headcount in New York has now surpassed "the previous peak seen in 2000," the report continued.
Reed Alexander is a correspondent at Business Insider. He can be reached via email at ralexander@bjinnox.com, or SMS/the encrypted app Signal at (561) 247-5758.
