Wall Street had a banner year in 2025 — and the paychecks show it.
The securities industry bonus pool reached a record $49.2 billion in 2025, up 9% from the prior year, while the average bonus climbed 6% to $246,900, New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said Thursday. Profits powered the payout: Wall Street earned a record $65.1 billion in pre-tax profits in 2025, up more than 30% from $49.9 billion the year before.
“Wall Street saw strong performance for much of last year, despite all of the ongoing domestic and international upheavals,” DiNapoli said. “When Wall Street does well, it’s good for our state and city budgets. However, we are seeing slower job growth, and geopolitical conflicts pose extraordinary risks for the short- and long-term outlook.”
Strong trading activity, underwriting, and asset-management fees drove the gains. There is, however, a significant asterisk: when adjusted for inflation, the bonus pool peaked before the Great Recession, in 2006, at $53.7 billion in today’s dollars, meaning the nominal record remains just that — nominal.
Wall Street’s footprint in New York remains enormous. The industry accounted for 20.2% of all economic activity in the city in 2024 and 19.4% of state tax collections in the last fiscal year. DiNapoli estimates the 2025 bonuses will generate $199 million more in state income tax revenue and $91 million more for the city compared to last year — a critical cushion as federal funding grows uncertain.
The average securities industry salary in New York City rose 7.3% to $505,677 in 2024, including bonuses — the second-highest on record and nearly five times the average salary in the rest of the city’s private sector. Bonuses alone made up roughly 42% of all industry wages.
Not everything is pointing up. Industry headcount fell to 198,200 in 2025 from a 30-year high of 201,500 in 2024, though the comptroller’s office expects annual data revisions to show modest growth. New York City’s share of national securities jobs has meanwhile slipped to 17.9%, down from roughly a third of the national total in 1990, as rivals like Dallas and Miami have aggressively built out their financial sectors.
The worry now is whether 2026 can come close to matching it. New York’s budget plans may already be too rosy: the governor’s proposed budget assumed finance-sector bonuses would rise 25.9% in the current fiscal year, while the city projected a 15.1% jump in securities bonuses. Based on DiNapoli’s estimate, both targets look out of reach.
President Trump’s escalating tariff agenda has rattled equity markets in early 2026, and Wall Street’s hiring momentum has stalled. With one in 13 New York City jobs tied directly or indirectly to the securities industry, the stakes for getting the next chapter right extend far beyond the trading floor.
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