Engels’ Pause.
source: Britannica
In the early 1800s, in England, factories started producing more than ever before.
Steam engines. Power looms. Iron foundries.
And output exploded.
However… for sixty years, workers saw almost none of it.
Economists call it Engels’ Pause.
While factory owners got rich, real wages for workers barely moved.
The productivity gains were real. The distribution of those gains was not.
Eventually – after six decades – wages caught up.
But for two generations of workers, the math was: More output. Same pay.
Fast forward to March 2026.
The New York State Comptroller just released the annual Wall Street bonus report.
Profits up 30%.
Bonus pool: record high.
Headcount: down.
Here’s the story ⇩
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The Record That Isn’t Quite A Record
Wall Street’s bonus pool hit $49.2 billion in 2025.
A new all-time high. Up 9% from the year before.
The average bonus? $246,900.
Up 6%.
Profits across the securities industry totaled $65.1 billion — a rise of more than 30% in a single year.
Trading activity surged. Underwriting fees climbed. Asset management revenue grew.
Wall Street had, by almost every measure, a spectacular 2025.
But here’s the asterisk hiding in paragraph four of the report.
Adjusted for inflation, the bonus pool peaked in 2006 at $53.7 billion.
The 2025 “record” is Wall Street catching up to itself from twenty years ago.
The headlines were right. They just left out the context.
Engels would recognize the pattern.
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Frozen. On Purpose.
Here’s the number that isn’t making headlines.
Securities industry employment in New York City edged down to 198,200 in 2025.
Down from a 30-year high of 201,500 in 2024.
So let’s make sure we have this right.
→ Profits up 30%.
→ Bonus pool up 9%.
→ Average bonus up 6%.
→ Headcount: down… with 3,300 fewer people than the year before.
Trading desks run leaner. Algorithms handle what analysts used to. Back-office functions that once employed dozens now run on software.
The industry made more.
It needed less to make it.
The Salary That Lives In A Different City
Step back for a second and look at this number.
The average annual salary in NYC’s securities industry — including bonuses — hit $505,677 in 2024.
That’s nearly five times the average salary in the rest of New York City’s private sector.
Seven times the average private sector wage nationally.
One industry. One city. Five times everyone around them.
And that’s the average.
The CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio at S&P 500 finance firms headquartered in New York State hit 236-to-1 in 2024.
For context: the rest of the nation averaged 194-to-1.
New York’s gap is wider than the country’s gap.
Bonuses alone accounted for 42% of total securities industry wages.
Which means the average Wall Street worker earned more in their bonus check than most Americans earn in an entire year.
The Comptroller noted that 1 in every 13 jobs in New York City is directly or indirectly tied to the securities industry.
Wall Street accounted for 20.2% of all economic activity in the city in 2024.
It is, in every measurable sense, the engine of New York.
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The Hidden Warning In The Report
Here’s the part most outlets skipped entirely.
The Governor’s budget assumed Wall Street bonuses in the broader finance and insurance sector would rise 25.9% this fiscal year.
New York City’s financial plan assumed a 15.1% increase in securities industry bonuses.
DiNapoli’s actual estimate came in below both projections.
The 2025 bonuses will generate $199 million more in state income tax and $91 million more for the city compared to last year.
That sounds like good news.
But if the budget was written assuming even higher bonuses – and the actual number came in lower – that gap has to come from somewhere.
And DiNapoli wasn’t subtle about the risk sitting underneath all of this.
“Geopolitical conflicts have global repercussions that pose extraordinary risks for the short- and long-term outlook on the financial sector and for broader economic markets.”
This is the good news report.
The good news report came with a warning.
Wall Street’s Share Of Everything
Here’s a number that puts it all in perspective.
1 in every 13 jobs in New York City is directly or indirectly tied to the securities industry. – Office of the NY State Comptroller, IMPLAN economic modeling
Wall Street accounted for 20.2% of all economic activity in the city in 2024.
It contributed $6.7 billion to New York City’s budget in FY 2025 alone — up 35% from the year before.
At the state level: $22 billion in tax contributions. Nearly 20% of all state tax collections.
New York State runs on Wall Street… it is, in every measurable sense, the engine of the city.
Which is exactly why the warning at the bottom of this report matters as much as the record at the top.
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