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Wall Street Bonuses Soar with #GOPTaxScam

March 26, 2018
The GOP tax scam continues to deliver staggering windfalls to the wealthiest few on the backs of hard-working Americans.

A new report shows that, fueled by the giveaways of the GOP tax scam, Wall Street bonuses have jumped an average of 17 percent (or $184,220) – the highest since the financial crisis a decade ago and three times what most households in America made all year.

CNBC: Wall Street bonuses jump 17% to precrisis levels

The annual bonus for the average Wall Street worker is back to heights not seen since before the financial crisis … The comptroller's annual report said bonuses for 2017 likely got a boost from tax law changes that will eliminate the corporate deduction for performance-based pay starting in 2018.

USA TODAY: Wall Street bonuses jump 17% to average of $184,220 in 2017

The big rise in stock prices in 2017 boosted the average bonus paid to Wall Street workers that live in New York city to $184,220, up 17% from a year earlier, according to an estimate released today by the New York State Comptroller.

Wall Street bonus pay dwarfs that of the average American worker. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median wage for workers in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2017 was $44,564 per year.

Washington Post: Wall Street's average bonus in 2017? Three times what most U.S. households made all year.

"The massive size of the Wall Street bonuses is disturbing not just because of how it contributes to economic inequality in this country," said?Sarah Anderson, the global economy project director at the Institute for Policy Studies. "It's also a sign that the reckless Wall Street bonus culture, which contributed to the 2008 financial crisis, continues to flourish.

True to form, Republicans delivered their wealthy donors a massive tax break on the backs of hard-working Americans – and their donors are giving them even bigger campaign contributions to seal the deal.

Democrats want real, bipartisan tax reform that puts the middle class first with A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future