While bankers’ salaries has long been decried by the public, but it is really the financial regulators who are making the big bucks, according to an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.
Paul Kupiec found that the average bank employee made $49,540 in 2012, similar to the average annual salary across all occupations, which is $45,790.
The average compensation at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the consumer Financial Protection Bureau was more than $190,000 in 2012. The Federal Reserve, which likely has even higher salaries, does not release its employees’ salaries.
Kupiec writes:
You might think high-paying jobs at these agencies require special skills. Not so. At the OCC, secretaries make on average $79,182 per annum. Motor vehicle operators (the agency's limo drivers) at the FDIC earn $82,130. Human resources management trainees at the CFPB make $110,759 a year.
Averages tell only part of the story. In 2012, 68 percent of FDIC and CFPB staff—and 66% at the OCC—earned above $100,000 a year. Nearly 19 percent of the CFPB and OCC staff earn more than $180,000 a year. At the OCC, 10.5% of workers earn above $200,000 a year, at the FDIC 9.3%.
Fewer than 7% of employees in any of these regulatory agencies earned less than $50,000. In other words, 93% of the employees in these federal bank regulatory agencies earned more than the average banker's salary in 2012.