Bank of America Investment Bankers Average $400,000 Bonuses
Investment bankers at Bank of America will receive a total of $4.4 billion in bonuses for 2009 performance, averaging $400,000 each.
While each employee isn't exactly being handed this much money in cash—a large chunk of these bonuses come in the form of stock—it's still a shockingly large amount of money, more in line with what one would expect from Wall Street financial giants.
A $400,000 bonus is a lot of money. To put that in perspective, that's roughly eight times the median household income in the United States. With only about two percent of the population bringing in over $250,000 per household, these guys are all sitting way up in the top income brackets.
That kind of makes you think long and hard about those $35 overdraft fees, doesn't it? It's hard to justify screwing over struggling customers when the guys at the top are drawing these massive bonuses.
Obama's proposed banking regulations, which would prevent commercial banks from engaging in trading and investments on their own behalf would certainly help to curb the activity that creates bonuses like this in the future, at least for companies that ostensibly have a stake in their clients like Bank of America.
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