March, 15 2017, 11:45am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sarah Anderson, report author and Global Economy Project Director, Institute for Policy Studies, sarah@ips-dc.org
Domenica Ghanem, Communications Coordinator, press@ips-dc.org
Wall Street Bonus Pool Dwarfs Minimum Wage Earnings and Contributes to Racial and Gender Inequality
Just-released figures from the New York State Comptroller show Wall Street banks handed out $23.9 billion in bonuses to their New York City-based employees last year. According to an
Just-released figures from the New York State Comptroller show Wall Street banks handed out $23.9 billion in bonuses to their New York City-based employees last year. According to an Institute for Policy Studies analysis of these figures:
- The total bonus pool for 177,000 Wall Street employees was 1.6 times the combined annual earnings of all 1,075,000 U.S. full-time minimum wage workers.
- The average Wall Street bonus increased by 1 percent last year to $138,210. Since 1985, the nominal value of the average Wall Street bonus has increased 890 percent, whereas the minimum wage has risen only 116 percent.
- The much faster increase in Wall Street bonuses has contributed to racial and gender inequality, since workers at the bottom of the wage scale are predominantly people of color and female, whereas those in the financial industry's upper echelons are overwhelmingly white and male.
o At the five largest investment banks, the share of executives and top managers who are white ranges from 84-87 percent, and the share who are male ranges from 66-84 percent.
o Only 44 percent of minimum wage workers are white and 37 percent are male.
- The 2016 bonus pool held enough dollars to lift the pay of any one of these groups of low-wage workers up to $15 per hour:
o all of the country's 3.1 million restaurant servers and bartenders,
o all 1.7 million home health and personal care aides, or
o all 3.2 million fast food preparation and serving workers
Link to full report: Off the Deep End: The Wall Street Bonus Pool and Low-Wage Workers.
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The powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday in an effort to block the agency's widely celebrated new rule banning most noncompete clauses, pervasive contract agreements that restrict employees' ability to work for or start a competing business.
The Chamber filed its lawsuit alongside the Business Roundtable and other corporate lobbying groups in a federal court in Texas. The suit came shortly after Ryan LLC, a tax service firm, filed the first legal challenge to the FTC's rule in a separate Texas venue.
"The commission's categorical ban on virtually all non-competes amounts to a vast overhaul of the national economy," reads the Chamber's complaint against the rule, which the FTC finalized in a 3-2 vote on Tuesday.
The agency, led by Biden-appointed Commissioner Lina Khan, estimates that roughly 30 million U.S. workers are subject to a noncompete agreement, limiting their ability to start their own companies or switch jobs in pursuit of better wages and benefits.
"Noncompete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism, including from the more than 8,500 new startups that would be created a year once noncompetes are banned," Khan said in a statement Tuesday. "The FTC's final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market."
"Noncompetes are about reducing competition, full stop. It's in their name."
The Chamber, the largest corporate lobbying organization in the United States, signaled its intent to sue the FTC immediately after the agency finalized its new rule on Tuesday.
"The Federal Trade Commission's decision to ban employer noncompete agreements across the economy is not only unlawful but also a blatant power grab that will undermine American businesses’ ability to remain competitive," Chamber president and CEO Suzanne Clark said in a statement following the FTC's vote.
While the organization claims to fight for the interests of businesses small and large, a Public Citizen report published earlier this year found that the majority of the Chamber's legal work supports big corporations.
The Chamber acknowledged in response to questioning from a pair of Democratic senators last year that its corporate members use noncompete clauses—though the group did not specify which members.
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Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) were the only members of the Democratic caucus who voted against the funding bill. Fifteen Republicans also opposed the bill over its inclusion of Ukraine aid.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of just three Senate Democratic caucus members to oppose the bill, said that "U.S. taxpayers should not be providing billions more to the extremist Netanyahu government."
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With the support of nearly 80% of the chamber's lawmakers, the U.S. Senate on Tuesday approved a sprawling foreign aid package that includes $17 billion in unconditional military assistance for the Israeli government as it ramps up its catastrophic assault on the Gaza Strip.
The final vote on the $95 billion package, which also included military aid for Ukraine and Taiwan, was 79-18, with just three members of the Senate Democratic caucus—Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)—and 15 Republicans opposing the bill.
Sanders called Tuesday "a dark day for democracy," condemning the upper chamber's refusal to even allow a vote on his proposed amendment to cut offensive military aid to Israel from the legislation.
"I voted no tonight on the foreign aid package for one simple reason: U.S. taxpayers should not be providing billions more to the extremist Netanyahu government to continue its devastating war against the Palestinian people," Sanders said in a statement following the vote. "Thirty-four thousand Palestinians have already been killed and 77,000 have been wounded—70% of whom are women and children."
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The bill, which passed the House over the weekend, now heads to the desk of President Joe Biden, who is expected to sign it in the coming days.
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The 79 senators who voted to pass Biden's foreign aid bill/expand Israel's genocide in Gaza: pic.twitter.com/bVQisvOndd
— Stephen Semler (@stephensemler) April 24, 2024
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"We're here as thousands of Jewish New Yorkers, calling on Senator Schumer to halt weapons funding to Israel as it massacres and starves Palestinians in Gaza," said Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson for IfNotNow, one of the groups that organized the mass demonstration on the second night of Passover.
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