Federal Minimum Wage Should Be $33 Based on Growth of Corporate Bonuses

The minimum wage would be $33.51 today, if it grew at the same rate as Wall Street bonuses.

In 1989, the minimum wage was $3.35 and the average Wall Street bonus was $13,300. The minimum wage has been raised seven times since. It’s now $7.25 last raised in July 2009—an increase of approximately 116% since 1989. Wall Street bonuses want up over $1,000% since 1989, to $153,700.

The total Wall Street bonus pool for 2018 was $27.5 billion, more than triple the combined earnings of the country’s 640,000 minimum-wage workers. Those bonuses are on top for the average Wall Street salary, which in 2017 was $422,500. The U.S. median household income in 2017 was $61,372.

The disparity was pointed out by Inequality.org, a project by the Institute for Policy Studies. It’s research also noted $24.7 million was the average compensation for CEOs of the largest investment banks. On average , their senior executives and managers are 74% male. In contrast, 37% of Americans making minimum wage are male.

On average, 82% of top executives and managers at same banks are white, while 55% of people in jobs paying less than $15 an hour are white.

The income gap continued to grow in that same period. Income for the top 1% of families grew 37% from 2009-2015, compared to 7.6% for the bottom 99%.